Europe & Central Asia

2002

New York, December 30, 2002—Tigran Nagdalian, the 36-year-old head of the state-owned Armenian Public Television, was shot in the head as he was leaving his parents home in Armenia's capital, Yerevan, on Saturday, December 28. The journalist was rushed to a hospital, where he died during emergency surgery, according to press reports.

"The imprisonment of Grigory Pasko one year ago was a politicized effort by military and security officials to silence him for writing articles about environmental dangers that jeopardized the health of the Russian people," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). "Pasko's continued imprisonment is an injustice that confirms the inability of the Russian judiciary to protect journalists' fundamental rights in politically sensitive cases."

There were 139 journalists in prison around the world at the end of 2002 who
were jailed for practicing their profession. The number is up significantly from
the previous year, when 118 journalists were in jail. An analysis of the reasons
behind this increase is contained in the introduction.

At the beginning of 2003, CPJ
sent letters of inquiry to the heads of state of every country on the list below
requesting information about each jailed journalist. Readers are encouraged to
add their voices to CPJ's by writing directly to the heads of state, whose names
and addresses can be found at www.cpj.org.

This list represents a snapshot of all the journalists who were
incarcerated when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 2002. It does not
include the many journalists who were imprisoned and released throughout the
year; accounts of those cases can be found in the regional sections of this
book.

A word about how this list is compiled: In totalitarian societies
where independent journalism is forbidden, CPJ often defends persecuted writers
whose governments view them as political dissidents rather than as journalists.
This category would embrace the samizdat publishers of the former Soviet Union
and the wall-poster essayists of the pre-Tiananmen period in China. We also
include political analysts, human rights activists, and others who were
prosecuted because of their written or broadcast work.

We consider any
journalist who is deprived of his or her liberty by a government to be
imprisoned. Journalists remain on this list until we receive positive
confirmation that they have been released. In some cases, we have received
reports that a journalist was killed in government custody. One example is
Nepalese journalist Krishna Sen, who was arrested by government forces in Nepal
on May 20, 2002, and has not been heard from since. We keep Sen on this list as
a way of holding the Nepalese government accountable for his fate.

Journalists who either disappear or are abducted by nonstate entities,
including criminal gangs, rebels, or militant groups, are not included on the
imprisoned list. Their cases are classified as "missing." CPJ documented four
such cases in 2002. Details are available on CPJ's Web site.

ALGERIA: 2

Djamel Eddine
Fahassi, Alger Chaîne III Imprisoned: May 6, 1995

Fahassi,
a reporter for the state-run radio station Alger Chaîne III and a contributor to
several Algerian newspapers, including the now banned weekly of the Islamic
Salvation Front, Al-Forqane, was abducted near his home in the
al-Harrache suburb of the capital, Algiers, by four well-dressed men carrying
walkie-talkies. According to eyewitnesses who later spoke with his wife, the men
called out Fahassi's name and then pushed him into a waiting car. He has not
been seen since, and Algerian authorities have denied any knowledge of his
arrest.

Prior to Fahassi's "disappearance," Algerian authorities had
targeted him on at least two occasions because his writing criticized the
government. In late 1991, he was arrested after an article in
Al-Forqane criticized a raid conducted by security forces on an Algiers
neighborhood. On January 1, 1992, the Blida Military Court convicted him of
disseminating false information, attacking a state institution, and
disseminating information that could harm national unity.

He received a
one-year suspended sentence and was released after five months. On February 17,
1992, he was arrested a second time for allegedly attacking state institutions
and spreading false information. He was transferred to the Ain Salah Detention
Center in southern Algeria, where hundreds of Islamic suspects were detained in
the months following the cancellation of the January 1992 elections.

In
late January 2002, Algerian ambassador to the United States Idriss Jazairy
responded to a CPJ query, saying a government investigation did not find those
responsible for Fahassi's abduction. The ambassador added that there was no
evidence of state involvement.

Aziz Bouabdallah,
Al-Alam al-Siyassi Imprisoned: April 12, 1997

Bouabdallah, a reporter
for the daily Al-Alam al-Siyassi, was abducted by three armed men from
his home in the capital, Algiers. According to Bouabdallah's family, the men
stormed into their home and, after identifying the journalist, grabbed him, put
his hands behind his back, and pushed him out the door and into a waiting car.
An article published in the daily El-Watan a few days after his
abduction reported that Bouabdallah was in police custody and was expected to be
released soon.

In July 1997, CPJ received credible information that
Bouabdallah was being held at the Châteauneuf detention facility in Algiers,
where he had reportedly been tortured. But Bouabdallah's whereabouts are
currently unknown, and authorities have denied any knowledge of his abduction.

In late January 2002, Algerian ambassador to the United States Idriss
Jazairy responded to a CPJ query, saying a government investigation did not find
those responsible. The ambassador added that there was no evidence of state
involvement.

BANGLADESH: 4

Saleem Samad, Reporters Sans Frontières
Imprisoned: November 29, 2002

Police arrested Samad, a well-known
free-lance journalist and press freedom activist, for his work with a
documentary crew that was preparing a report about Bangladesh for the
"Unreported World" series on Britain's Channel 4. Samad, who is the Bangladesh
representative for the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Sans
Frontières, had worked for the documentary team as an interpreter.

On
November 25, police had arrested Zaiba Malik, the reporter for the documentary;
Bruno Sorrentino, the film's director and cameraman; and Priscilla Raj, a
free-lance Bangladeshi journalist who also worked for the documentary team as an
interpreter. Samad had gone into hiding after his colleagues' arrests but was
found and detained on November 29. All four journalists were accused of
sedition.

Police arrested the journalists for their alleged involvement
in "clandestine activities as journalists with an apparent and malicious intent
of portraying Bangladesh as an Islamic fanatical country," said a statement
issued by the Bangladeshi government, as reported by the Agence France-Presse
news agency.

On December 11, authorities released Malik and Sorrentino
and deported them to Britain. The two foreign journalists signed a statement
saying they would not produce any reports from their footage gathered in
Bangladesh and "expressing regret for the unfortunate situation arising since
their arrival in Bangladesh." However, the Bangladeshi journalists remained in
jail. Raj was not released until December 23.

On December 4, while being
transported back to prison after attending a court hearing, Samad shouted to
journalists out of the window of his van, "I have been subjected to inhuman
torture," according to Bangladeshi press reports.

On December 23, the
High Court ordered Samad's release on bail within 24 hours. However, the next
day, government authorities ordered that Samad remain in custody for 30 more
days under the Special Powers Act, which allows for the preventive detention of
anyone suspected of anti-state activities. On January 14, 2003, the High Court
ruled that the government's order to extend Samad's detention was illegal and
that he should be released. Samad was finally freed from Kashimpur Jail, which
is just outside of Dhaka, on January 18.

Shahriar Kabir, free-lance
Imprisoned: December 8, 2002

Kabir, a free-lance journalist and human
rights activist, was detained in the capital, Dhaka, as part of a police sweep
during which about 40 opposition figures were arrested. Authorities initially
said that Kabir was being held in connection with a sedition case against
journalists working on a documentary about the political situation in Bangladesh
for Britain's Channel 4. The government had accused the Channel 4 team of having
the "malicious intent of portraying Bangladesh as an Islamic fanatical country."
Kabir was among those interviewed for the film.

During a December 12,
2002, court hearing, Kabir told investigators that he had been tortured in
police custody and denied food for more than 24 hours, according to Bangladeshi
press reports. He was transferred to three different jails and was last
imprisoned in the southern city of Chittagong, about 160 miles (260 kilometers)
from Dhaka, a move that made it difficult for his relatives and lawyers to
visit.

On January 4, 2003, the High Court declared Kabir's detention
illegal and ordered his release within 24 hours. On January 5, the government
ignored the ruling and ordered Kabir to remain in detention for 90 more days
under the Special Powers Act, which allows for the preventive detention of
anyone suspected of anti-state activities. He was finally freed on the afternoon
of January 7.

This was the second time in a year that Kabir was
imprisoned. An outspoken critic of the government, Kabir was arrested in
November 2001 and accused by the Home Ministry of being "involved in a heinous
bid to tarnish the image of Bangladesh and its government." The charge stemmed
from his reporting on the ruling party's responsibility for a wave of attacks
against Bangladesh's Hindu minority that followed the October 2001 parliamentary
elections. He was first detained under the provisions of the Special Powers Act
and was later charged with treason. He was freed on January 20, 2002, following
two separate High Court orders for his release.

Muntasir Mamun, free-lance
Imprisoned: December 8, 2002

Mamun, a writer and historian, was among
several prominent government critics and opposition members arrested in a series
of police raids on December 8 and 9 in the capital, Dhaka. He was held under the
provisions of Bangladesh's Special Powers Act (SPA), which allows for the
preventive detention of anyone suspected of anti-state activities, on suspicion
of trying to destabilize the government.

Mamun, the author of several
books about Bangladesh, is a professor of history at Dhaka University. He also
regularly contributes columns to several Bengali-language newspapers and had
recently written articles about alleged abuses committed by the army during the
government's recent anti-crime drive, Operation Clean Heart.

On December
12, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Dhaka rejected Mamun's bail
petition and ordered him to be held for 30 days in preventive detention, under
the SPA, while his case was being investigated. Mamun was imprisoned at the
remote Dinajpur Jail, located about 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Dhaka in
northern Bangladesh, making it both difficult and expensive for lawyers and
family members to visit him.

On January 5, 2003, the High Court declared
Mamun's detention illegal and ordered the government to release him within 24
hours. The court ruled that the government had failed to demonstrate sufficient
grounds for Mamun's detention. However, Dinajpur Jail officials claimed that
they did not receive the court order promptly and only released Mamun on January
9.

Police arrested Chowdhury, a senior reporter for the
government-controlled news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) and a
stringer for Reuters news agency, for allegedly fabricating comments, attributed
to the home minister, that al-Qaeda may have been responsible for a series of
bombings on December 7, 2002, that killed at least 17 people in the northern
town of Mymensingh. Reuters' coverage of the attacks quoted the
statements.

Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury (no relation to the
journalist) denied making the statements. Reuters later withdrew five stories
regarding the explosions that ran on December 7 and 8, saying it could "no
longer vouch for the accuracy of the remarks," and that it was conducting an
internal investigation into its coverage of the attacks. BSS dismissed Enamul
Hoque Chowdhury on December 14.

A police statement issued after the
journalist's arrest said that his reporting had "tarnished the country's image
internationally and threatened its relations with powerful and friendly
countries." Police later filed a case against the journalist for complicity in
the Mymensingh bomb attacks, which the government claims were part of a
conspiracy by the political opposition to destroy the administration's
reputation. He is being held under Bangladesh's Special Powers Act, which allows
for preventive detention of anyone suspected of anti-state activities.

"We permit a free press," Communications Minister Nazmul Huda told
London's Financial Times. "But we will not allow reporters to besmirch
our reputation internationally by making unsubstantiated allegations about
Islamic extremism or the presence of an al-Qaeda cell."

Chowdhury
admitted to colleagues that he mistakenly attributed comments about al-Qaeda's
possible role in the blasts to the home minister. However, the journalist has
denied any criminal wrongdoing. Legal challenges to his detention were ongoing
in January 2003. The High Court ordered a medical board to examine Chowdhury for
evidence that he was tortured while in police custody. As this book went to
press, Chowdhury was imprisoned at Dhaka Central Jail.

Markevich and
Mazheika, both of the independent weekly newspaper Pahonya, were
convicted on June 24, 2002, by the Leninsky District Court in the city of
Hrodna, in western Belarus, of libeling President Aleksandr Lukashenko. The
journalists were sentenced to two-and-a-half and two years, respectively, of
corrective labor. The case stemmed from two September 2001 editions of
Pahonya that criticized the president ahead of the widely disputed
September 9, 2001, presidential elections.

The sentences were later
reduced to 18 months for Markevich and 12 months for Mazheika. They began
serving their corrective labor terms on September 1, 2002. The two men live in
detention centers under police supervision and perform compulsory labor. They
were the first journalists convicted under a criminal libel law passed in 1999,
which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison for libeling the
president.

During a 10-day research mission to Belarus in the fall of
2002, CPJ visited both journalists and brought them supplies and also lobbied
the government for their releases. In August 2002, Markevich reported that the
Hrodna City Executive Council had denied a petition to register his new
publication, Holos. Previously, Markevich had submitted four other
prospective newspapers for the council's approval, all of which were
denied.

Viktar
Ivashkevich, RabochyImprisoned: December 16,
2002

Ivashkevich, editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper
Rabochy, was convicted by a court in the capital, Minsk, of libeling
President Aleksandr Lukashenko and sentenced to two years' hard labor. Under
Belarus' Criminal Code, libeling the president is punishable by up to five years
in prison.

The case stemmed from an article in a special August 2001
issue of the newspaper titled "A Thief Belongs in Prison," which accused
Lukashenko's administration of corruption. Rabochy's special issue
never reached its readers because prosecutors seized 40,000 copies of it and
submitted them as evidence in the case.

A Minsk District Prosecutor's
Office charged Ivashkevich with criminal libel almost a year later, on June 20,
2002.

The journalist's trial began on September 11, 2002, and he was
convicted five days later, on September 16. Ivashkevich appealed the verdict,
but on October 15, the Criminal Cases Collegium of the Minsk City Court upheld
his sentence. In early December, prosecutors rejected a request by the
journalist to serve his corrective labor in Minsk. On December 16, he left the
capital for Baranovichy, a city 85 miles (136 kilometers) southwest of Minsk,
where he is serving his term.

During a 10-day research mission to Belarus
in the fall of 2002, CPJ met with Ivashkevich to discuss his case, his
publication's dire financial situation, and press freedom conditions in
Belarus.

BURMA: 9

U Win
Tin, free-lanceImprisoned: July 4, 1989

U Win Tin, former
editor-in-chief of the daily Hanthawati and vice chairman of Burma's
Writers Association, was arrested and sentenced to three years of hard labor on
the false charge of arranging a "forced abortion" for a member of the opposition
National League for Democracy (NLD). One of Burma's most well-known and
influential journalists, U Win Tin helped establish independent publications
during the 1988 student democracy movement. He was also a senior leader of the
NLD and a close adviser to opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

In
1992, he was sentenced to an additional 10 years for "writing and publishing
pamphlets to incite treason against the State" and "giving seditious talks,"
according to a May 2000 report by the Defense Ministry's Office of Strategic
Studies. On March 28, 1996, prison authorities extended U Win Tin's sentence by
another seven years after they convicted him, along with at least 22 others, of
producing clandestine publications--including a report describing the horrific
conditions at Rangoon's Insein Prison to Yozo Yokota, the U.N. special
rapporteur for human rights in Burma.

U Win Tin was charged under
Section 5(e) of the Emergency Provisions Act for having "secretly published
anti-government propaganda to create riots in jail," according to the Defense
Ministry report. His cumulative sentence is, therefore, 20 years of hard labor
and imprisonment.

Now 72 years old, the veteran journalist is said to be
in extremely poor health after years of maltreatment in Burma's
prisons--including a period when he was kept in solitary confinement in one of
Insein Prison's notorious "dog cells," formerly used as kennels for the
facility's guard dogs. He suffers from spondylitis, a degenerative spine
disease, as well as a prostate gland disorder and hemorrhoids. The journalist
has had at least two heart attacks, and in 2002, he spent several months at
Rangoon General Hospital following a hernia operation.

In July 2002,
reports emerged that U Win Tin's health had deteriorated even further, and many
international groups, including CPJ, called for his immediate and unconditional
release. In November 2002, authorities again transferred U Win Tin to Rangoon
General Hospital, this time for medical treatment in connection with a heart
ailment.

On September 7,
1990, Col. Than Tun, Burma's deputy chief of military intelligence, announced at
a press conference that Ohn Kyaing and Thein Tan were among six leaders of the
opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) arrested on the previous day,
according to international news reports.

On October 19, 1990, the
Information Committee of the junta (then known as the State Law and Order
Restoration Council and later renamed the State Peace and Development Council)
announced at a press conference that Ohn Kyaing and Thein Tan "had been
sentenced to seven years imprisonment by a military tribunal for inciting unrest
by writing false reports about the unrest, which occurred in Mandalay on 8
August 1990," according to the BBC's translation of a state radio broadcast.

The Mandalay "unrest" the committee referred to involved the killing of
four pro-democracy demonstrators by the military. Government troops fired on
protestors--who were commemorating the democracy rallies of August 8, 1988,
during which hundreds were shot dead--killing two monks and two students.

Ohn Kyaing, who also uses the name Aung Wint, is the former editor of
the newspaper Botahtaung and one of Burma's most prominent journalists.
He retired from Botahtaung in December 1988 to become more involved in
the pro-democracy movement, according to the PEN American Center. In 1990, Ohn
Kyaing was elected to Parliament for the NLD, representing a district in
Mandalay. (The results of the elections, which the NLD won, were never honored
by the military junta.) A leading intellectual, he continued to write. Thein
Tan, whose name is sometimes written as Thein Dan, is also a free-lance writer
and political activist associated with the NLD.

PEN reported that in
mid-1991, Ohn Kyaing received an additional sentence of 10 years in prison under
the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act for his involvement in drafting a pamphlet for
the NLD titled "The Three Paths to Power." Thein Tan also received an additional
10-year sentence, according to Amnesty International, presumably for the same
reason.

In a list of Burmese political prisoners published in April 2001,
Amnesty International reported that the sentences of both men were reduced to 10
years on January 1, 1993. However, Ohn Kyaing and Thein Tan remained in prison
at the end of 2002. Ohn Kyaing was jailed at Taungoo Prison, and Thein Tan was
jailed at Thayet Prison, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association
for Political Prisoners in Burma.

Maung Maung Lay
Ngwe, Pe-Tin-ThanImprisoned: September 1990

Maung
Maung Lay Ngwe was arrested and charged with writing and distributing
publications that "make people lose respect for the government." The
publications were titled, collectively, Pe-Tin-Than (Echoes). CPJ
believes he may have been released but has not been able to confirm his legal
status or find records of his sentencing.

Sein Hla
Oo, free-lanceImprisoned: August 5, 1994

Sein Hla Oo, a
free-lance journalist and former editor of the newspaper Botahtaung,
was arrested along with dissident writer San San Nwe on charges of contacting
anti-government groups and spreading information damaging to the state. On
October 6, 1994, Sein Hla Oo was sentenced to seven years in prison. San San Nwe
and three other dissidents, including a former UNICEF worker, received sentences
ranging from seven to 15 years in prison on similar charges.

Officials
said the five had "fabricated and sent anti-government reports" to diplomats in
foreign embassies, foreign radio stations, and foreign journalists. Sein Hla Oo,
elected in 1990 to Parliament representing the National League for Democracy
(NLD), had been imprisoned previously for his political activities.

Though San San Nwe was granted an early release in July 2001 along with
10 other political prisoners associated with the NLD, Sein Hla Oo remained in
jail. He was held at Myitkyina Prison, according to the Thailand-based
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma.

Though Sein Hla
Oo's sentence should have expired in August 2001, he is now being forced to
serve the remainder of an earlier 10-year prison sentence, issued by a military
court in Insein Prison in March 1991, according to his wife, Shwe Zin.
Authorities had arrested Sein Hla Oo in August 1990 along with several other NLD
members but released him under an amnesty order in April 1992. Shwe Zin told the
Oslo-based opposition radio station Democratic Voice of Burma in an interview
that her husband had signed a document in October 2001 agreeing to abide by
Article 401 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which allows prisoners' sentences to
be suspended if they pledge not to engage in activities that threaten public
order.

Aung Htun, free-lanceTha
Ban, free-lanceImprisoned: February 1998

Aung Htun, a writer
and activist with the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, was arrested in
February 1998 for writing a seven-volume book documenting the history of the
Burmese student movement. He was sentenced to a total of 17 years' imprisonment,
according to a joint report published in December 2001 by the Thailand-based
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma and the Burma Lawyers
Council. Aung Htun was sentenced to three years for allegedly violating the 1962
Printer and Publishers Registration Act, seven years under the 1950 Emergency
Provisions Act, and another seven years under the 1908 Unlawful Associations
Act. He is jailed at Tharawaddy Prison.

In April 1998, the All Burma
Students Democratic Front announced that five others were also prosecuted for
contributing to the books, including journalist Tha Ban, a former editor at
Kyemon newspaper and a prominent Arakanese activist. Tha Ban, whose
name is sometimes written as Thar Ban, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
He is being held at Insein Prison.

In August 2002, the human rights
group Amnesty International issued an urgent appeal on behalf of Aung Htun and
Tha Ban, saying that both journalists required immediate medical attention.
Amnesty reported that Aung Htun "has growths on his feet which require
investigation, is unable to walk, and suffers from asthma," and that Tha Ban's
eyesight has "seriously deteriorated."

Aung Pwint,
free-lanceThaung Tun, free-lanceImprisoned: October
1999

Aung Pwint, a videographer, editor, and poet, and Thaung Tun, an
editor, reporter, and poet better known by his pen name Nyein Thit, were
arrested separately in early October 1999. CPJ sources said they were arrested
for making independent video documentaries that portrayed "real life" in Burma,
including footage of forced labor and hardship in rural areas. Aung Pwint worked
at a private media company that produced videos for tourism and educational
purposes, but he also worked with Thaung Tun on documentary-style projects.
Their videotapes circulated through underground networks.

The military
government had prohibited Aung Pwint from making videos in 1996 "because they
were considered to show too negative a picture of Burmese society and living
standards," according to Human Rights Watch, which awarded Aung Pwint a
Hellman-Hammett grant in 2001. A notable poet, he has also written under the
name Maung Aung Pwint.

The two men were tried together, and each was
sentenced to eight years in prison, according to CPJ sources. Aung Pwint was
initially jailed at Insein Prison but was later transferred to Tharawaddy
Prison, according to CPJ sources. Thaung Tun was jailed at Moulmein Prison,
according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
in Burma.

CHINA: 39

Chen Renjie,
"Ziyou Bao"Lin Youping, "Ziyou Bao"Imprisoned: July
1983

In September 1982, Chen, Lin, and Chen Biling wrote and published a
pamphlet titled "Ziyou Bao" (Freedom Report), distributing around 300 copies in
Fuzhou, Fujian Province. They were arrested in July 1983, and authorities
accused them of making contact with Taiwanese spy organizations and publishing a
counterrevolutionary pamphlet. According to official government records of the
case, the men used "propaganda and incitement to encourage the overthrow of the
people's democratic dictatorship and the socialist system." In August 1983, Chen
Renjie was sentenced to life in prison, and Lin Youping was sentenced to death
with reprieve. Chen Biling was sentenced to death and later
executed.

Hu Liping, Beijing RibaoImprisoned: April 7, 1990

Hu, a staff member of Beijing
Ribao (Beijing Daily), was arrested and charged with "counterrevolutionary
incitement and propaganda" and "trafficking in state secrets," according to a
rare release of information on his case from the Chinese Ministry of Justice in
1998. The Beijing Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to 10 years in
prison on August 15, 1990. Under the terms of his original sentence, Hu should
have been released in 2000, but CPJ has been unable to obtain information about
his legal status.

Chen Yanbin,
TieliuImprisoned: September 1990

Chen and Zhang Yafei, both
university students, were arrested and charged with counterrevolutionary
incitement and propaganda for publishing Tieliu (Iron Currents), an
underground publication about the 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square. Several
hundred mimeographed copies of the publication were distributed. Chen was
sentenced to 15 years in prison and four years without political rights after
his release. Zhang was sentenced to 11 years in prison and two years without
political rights after his release. However, Zhang was freed on January 6, 2000,
after showing "genuine repentance and a willingness to reform." In September
2000, the Justice Ministry announced that Chen's sentence had been reduced by
three months for good behavior.

Liu Jingsheng,
free-lanceImprisoned: May 28, 1992

Liu was arrested and charged with
"organizing and leading a counterrevolutionary group and spreading
counterrevolutionary propaganda." He was sentenced to 15 years in prison after
being tried secretly in July 1994.

Liu had belonged to labor and
pro-democracy groups, including the Liberal Democratic Party of China, the Free
Labor Union of China, and the Chinese Progressive Alliance, and had written
articles supporting the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations. During the Democracy
Wall movement in 1979, Liu co-edited the pro-democracy journal Tansuo
(Explorations) with dissident Wei Jingsheng.

Court documents stated that
Liu was involved in organizing and leading anti-government and pro-democracy
activities. Prosecutors also accused him and other dissidents who were tried on
similar charges of writing and printing political leaflets that were distributed
in June 1992, during the third anniversary of the Tiananmen Square
demonstrations. Liu has had his sentence reduced three times for good behavior,
by a total of one year and eight months. In May 2002, on the 10th anniversary of
her husband's arrest, Liu's wife, Jin Yanming, wrote an account of his
imprisonment, trial, and the subsequent harassment of her family by security
officials. The document was distributed online.

Kang
Yuchun, Freedom ForumImprisoned: May 1992

Kang
disappeared on May 6, 1992, and was presumed arrested, according to the New
York-based advocacy organization Human Rights Watch. In October 1993, in
response to an inquiry from the U.N. Working Group on Disappearances, Chinese
authorities said Kang was arrested on May 27, 1992. On July 14, 1994, he was one
of 16 individuals tried in a Chinese court for alleged involvement with
underground pro-democracy groups. Kang was accused, among other charges, of
launching Freedom Forum, the magazine of the Chinese Progressive
Alliance, and of commissioning people to write articles for the magazine. On
December 16, 1994, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for "disseminating
counterrevolutionary propaganda" and for "organizing and leading a
counterrevolutionary group." His sentence has been reduced three times, by a
total of three years and eight months, for good behavior.

Wu, an editor
for China's state news agency, Xinhua, was arrested for allegedly leaking an
advance copy of President Jiang Zemin's 14th Communist Party Congress address to
a journalist from the now defunct Hong Kong newspaper Kuai Bao (Express). His
wife, Ma, editor of Zhongguo Jiankang Jiaoyu Bao (China Health
Education News), was arrested on the same day and accused of acting as Wu's
accomplice. The Beijing Municipal Intermediate People's Court held a closed
trial, and on August 30, 1993, sentenced Wu to life imprisonment for "illegally
supplying state secrets to foreigners." Ma was sentenced to six years in prison.
According to the terms of her original sentence, Ma should have been released in
November 1998, but CPJ has been unable to obtain information on her legal
status.

Fan Yingshang, Remen
HuatiSentenced: February 7, 1996

In 1994, Fan and Yang Jianguo
printed more than 60,000 copies of a magazine called Remen Huati
(Popular Topics). The men had allegedly purchased fake printing authorizations
from an editor of the Journal of European Research at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, according to official Chinese news sources. CPJ was
unable to determine the date of Fan's arrest, but on February 7, 1996, the
Chang'an District Court in Shijiazhuang City sentenced him to 15 years in prison
for "engaging in speculation and profiteering." Authorities termed Remen
Huati a "reactionary" publication. Yang escaped arrest and was not
sentenced.

Hua Di, free-lanceImprisoned: January
5, 1998

Hua, a permanent resident of the United States, was arrested
while visiting China and charged with revealing state secrets. The charge is
believed to stem from articles that Hua, a scientist at Stanford University, had
written about China's missile defense system.

On November 25, 1999, the
Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court held a closed trial and sentenced Hua
to 15 years in prison, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for
Human Rights and Democracy. In March 2000, the Beijing High People's Court
overturned Hua's conviction and ordered that the case be retried. This judicial
reversal was extraordinary, particularly for a high-profile political case.
Nevertheless, in April 2000, the Beijing State Security Bureau rejected a
request for Hua to be released on medical parole; he suffers from a rare form of
male breast cancer.

On November 23, 2000, after a retrial, the Beijing
No. 1 Intermediate People's Court issued a slightly modified verdict, sentencing
Hua to 10 years in prison. News of Hua's sentencing broke in February 2001, when
a relative gave the information to foreign correspondents based in Beijing. In
late 2001, Hua was moved to Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai, according to CPJ
sources.

Gao Qinrong, Xinhua News
AgencyImprisoned: December 4, 1998

Gao, a reporter for China's state
news agency, Xinhua, was jailed for reporting on a corrupt irrigation scheme in
drought-plagued Yuncheng, Shanxi Province. Xinhua never carried Gao's article,
which was finally published on May 27, 1998, in an internal reference edition of
the official People's Daily that is distributed only among a select
group of party leaders. But by fall 1998, the irrigation scandal had become
national news, with reports appearing in the Guangzhou-based Nanfang
Zhoumo (Southern Weekend) and on China Central Television. Gao's wife, Duan
Maoying, said that local officials blamed Gao for the flurry of media interest
and arranged for his prosecution on false charges.

Gao was arrested on
December 4, 1998, and eventually charged with crimes including bribery,
embezzlement, and pimping, according to Duan. On April 28, 1999, he was
sentenced to 13 years in prison after a closed, one-day trial. He is being held
in a prison in Qixian, Shanxi Province, according to CPJ sources.

In
September 2001, Gao wrote to Mary Robinson, then the U.N. high commissioner for
human rights, and asked her to intercede with the Chinese government on his
behalf. Gao has received support from several members of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference of the National People's Congress, who issued
a motion at its annual parliamentary meeting in March 2001 urging the Central
Discipline Committee and Supreme People's Court to reopen his case. But by the
end of 2002, there had been no change in his legal
status.

Yue Tianxiang, Zhongguo Gongren
GuanchaImprisoned: January 1999

The Tianshui People's
Intermediate Court in Gansu Province sentenced Yue to 10 years in prison on July
5, 1999. The journalist was charged with "subverting state power," according to
the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. Yue was
arrested along with two colleagues--Wang Fengshan and Guo Xinmin--both of whom
were sentenced to two years' imprisonment and have since been released.
According to the Hong Kong-based daily South China Morning Post, Yue,
Guo, and Wang were arrested in January 1999 for publishing Zhongguo Gongren
Guancha (China Workers' Monitor), a journal that campaigned for workers'
rights.

With help from Wang, Yue and Guo started the journal after they
were unable to get compensation from the Tianshui City Transport Agency
following their dismissal from the company in 1995. All three men were
reportedly members of the outlawed China Democracy Party, a dissident group, and
were forming an organization to protect the rights of laid-off workers. The
first issue of Zhongguo Gongren Guancha exposed extensive corruption among
officials at the Tianshui City Transport Agency. Only two issues were ever
published.

Wang Yingzheng, free-lance
Imprisoned: February 26, 1999

Police arrested Wang in the city of
Xuzhou, in eastern Jiangsu Province, as he was photocopying an article he had
written about political reform. The article was based on an open letter that the
19-year-old Wang had addressed to Chinese president Jiang Zemin. In the letter,
Wang wrote--as translated by Agence France-Presse--"Many Chinese are discontented
with the government's inability to squash corruption. This is largely due to a
lack of opposition parties and a lack of press freedom."

About five
months earlier, in September 1998, Wang had been imprisoned for two weeks,
during which time authorities questioned him about his association with Qin
Yongmin, a key leader of the China Democracy Party who received a 12-year prison
sentence in December 1998.

On December 10, 1999, Wang was convicted of
subversion and sentenced to three years in prison. His trial was closed, but his
family was notified of the verdict by letter, according to the Hong Kong-based
Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. According to the original
terms of his sentence, Wang should have been released in February 2002, but CPJ
has been unable to determine his legal status.

Wu, an organizer for the banned China
Democracy Party (CDP), was detained by police in Guangzhou on April 26, 1999.
Mao, Zhu, and Xu, also leading CDP activists, were reportedly detained sometime
around June 4, the 10th anniversary of the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy
demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. The four were later charged with subversion
for, among other things, establishing a magazine called Zaiye Dang
(Opposition Party) and circulating pro-democracy writings online.

On
October 25, 1999, the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court in Zhejiang Province
conducted what The New York Times described as a "sham trial." On
November 9, 1999, all four journalists were convicted of subversion. Wu was
sentenced to 11 years in prison. Mao was sentenced to eight years in prison;
Zhu, to seven years; and Xu, to five years.

In December 2002, Mao was
transferred to a convalescence hospital after his health had sharply declined as
a result of being confined to his cell. Zhu, who has also been confined to his
cell and forbidden from reading newspapers, had been placed under tightened
restrictions at year's end after refusing to express regret for his actions,
according to the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights in
China.

Liu Xianli, free-lance Imprisoned: May
11, 1999

The Beijing Intermediate Court found writer Liu guilty of
subversion and sentenced him to four years in prison, according to a report by
the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and
Democracy.

Liu's "crime" was attempting to publish a book on Chinese
dissidents, including Xu Wenli, one of China's most prominent political
prisoners and a leading figure in the China Democracy Party. In December 1998,
Xu was himself convicted of subversion and sentenced to 13 years in prison. On
December 24, 2002, Xu was released on medical parole and deported to the United
States.

Jiang Qisheng, free-lanceImprisoned: May
18, 1999

Police arrested Jiang in the late evening and searched his home,
seizing his computer, several documents, and articles he had written for
Beijing zhi Chun (Beijing Spring), a New York-based pro-democracy
publication. The arrest came after Jiang published a series of essays and open
letters related to the 10th anniversary of the government's violent suppression
of student-led demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. One essay called for a
candlelight vigil on June 4, 1999; another urged the government to conduct a
full investigation into the massacre; and a third protested the police's brutal
treatment of Cao Jiahe, an editor of Dongfang (Orient) magazine who was
detained on May 10, 1999, and tortured while in police custody. Cao had been
detained for allegedly circulat- ing a petition to remember the hundreds killed
by government troops during the Tiananmen crackdown.

During Jiang's
two-and-a-half-hour trial, held on November 1, 1999, prosecutors cited an April
essay calling for a protest vigil, "Light a Thousand Candles," as evidence of
his anti-state activities. Prosecutors also accused him of circulating an
article on political reform, though Jiang said he showed the piece to only three
friends. On December 27, 2000, thirteen months after his trial, the Beijing No.
1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Jiang to four years in prison.

An Jun, free-lanceImprisoned: July
1999

An, an anti-corruption campaigner, was sentenced to four years in
prison on subversion charges. The Intermediate People's Court in Xinyang, Henan
Province, announced the verdict on April 19, 2000, citing An's essays and
articles on corruption as evidence of his anti-state activities.

A former
manager of an export trading company, An founded the civic group Zhongguo Fubai
Xingwei Guancha (China Corruption Monitor) in 1998 and was arrested in July
1999. The group reportedly exposed more than 100 cases of corruption. During his
November 1999 trial, An "said he was only trying to help the government end
rampant corruption," according to Agence France-Presse.

In November
2001, An's family sent a letter to President Jiang Zemin appealing for the
journalist's release for medical reasons. An suffers from heart problems and has
not received adequate treatment while in prison, according to Agence
France-Presse.

On December 7, 2002, An began a hunger strike to protest
prison conditions, according to the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights
in China. At the end of the year, he was in critical condition after having
refused food for more than three weeks.

Qi Yanchen,
free-lanceImprisoned: September 2, 1999

Police arrested Qi at his
home in Cangzhou, Hebei Province. His wife told reporters that officers
confiscated his computer, printer, fax machine, and a number of documents. Qi,
an economist, has published many articles in intellectual journals and online
publications calling for economic and political reforms. He was also associated
with the online magazine Canzhao (Consultations), a publication linked
to the banned China Development Union.

On May 30, 2000, Qi was
prosecuted for subversion before the Cangzhou People's Court in a closed,
half-day trial. He was sentenced to four years in prison on September 19, 2000.
His sentencing papers cited as evidence articles he had written for Hong Kong
magazines and overseas Web sites.

Zhang Ji,
free-lanceImprisoned: October 1999

Zhang, a student at Qiqihar
University in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, was charged on November
8, 1999, with "disseminating reactionary documents via the Internet," according
to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and
Democracy.

Zhang had allegedly distributed news and information about the
banned spiritual movement Falun Gong. He was arrested sometime in October as
part of the Chinese government's crackdown on the sect.

Using the
Internet, Zhang reportedly transmitted news of the crackdown to Falun Gong
members in the United States and Canada and also received reports from abroad,
which he then circulated among practitioners in China. Before Zhang's arrest,
Chinese authorities had increased Internet surveillance as part of their effort
to crush Falun Gong.

Huang Qi, Tianwang Web
siteImprisoned: June 3, 2000

Public security officials came to
Huang's office and arrested him for articles that had appeared on the Tianwang
Web site, which he published. In January 2001, he was charged with
subversion.

In October 1998, Huang and his wife, Zeng Li, launched
Tianwang (www.6-4tianwang.com), a
missing-persons search service based in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The site soon
became a forum for users to publicize abuses of power by local officials and to
post articles about a variety of topics, including the June 4, 1989, military
crackdown on peaceful demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, the independence
movement in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, and the banned spiritual
group Falun Gong.

In December 1999, Huang published an investigative
report about labor abuses committed against workers whom the Sichuan provincial
government had sent abroad. While several domestic newspapers subsequently
investigated and published stories on the case, authorities in Chengdu began
threatening Huang and repeatedly interrogated him about his
reporting.

Huang has been beaten in prison and has tried to commit
suicide, according to an open letter he wrote from prison in February 2001 that
was published on the Tianwang site. His family members, including his wife and
young son, have not been allowed to visit or communicate with him since his
arrest two years ago.

The Chengdu Intermediate Court in Sichuan Province
held a secret trial on August 14, 2001. Family members were not allowed to
attend, and no verdict or sentencing date was released. Huang's trial had been
postponed several times throughout 2001 in an apparent effort to deflect
international attention from China's human rights practices during the country's
campaign to host the 2008 Olympic Games. (Two of the trial delays--on February 23
and June 27--coincided with important dates in Beijing's Olympics
bid.)

Overseas supporters of Huang regularly post updates on his case to
the Tianwang Web site, which is now hosted on a server outside
China.

Xu Zerong, free-lanceImprisoned: June 24,
2000

Xu was arrested in the city of Guangzhou and held incommunicado for
19 months before being tried by the Shenzhen Intermediate Court in January 2002.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of "leaking state secrets" and
to an additional three years on charges of committing "economic
crimes."

Xu, an associate research professor in the Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, has written
several free-lance articles about China's foreign policy and co-founded a Hong
Kong-based academic journal, Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Jikan (China Social
Sciences Quarterly). Xu is a permanent resident of Hong Kong.

Chinese
officials have said that the "state secrets" charges against Xu stem from his
use of historical materials for his academic research. In 1992, Xu photocopied
four books published in the 1950s about China's role in the Korean War, which he
then sent to a colleague in South Korea, according to a letter from the Chinese
government to St. Antony's College, Oxford University. (Xu earned his Ph.D. at
St. Antony's College, and since his arrest, college personnel have actively
researched and protested his case.) The Security Committee of the People's
Liberation Army in Guangzhou later determined that these documents should be
labeled "top secret."

The "economic crimes" charges are related to the
"illegal publication" of more than 60,000 copies of 25 books and periodicals
since 1993, including several books about Chinese politics and Beijing's
relations with Taiwan, according to official government documents.

Some
observers believe that the charges against Xu are more likely related to an
article he wrote for the Hong Kong-based Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly)
newsmagazine revealing clandestine Chinese Communist Party support for Malaysian
communist insurgency groups. Xu was arrested only days before the article
appeared in the June 26, 2000, issue. In the article, Xu accused the Chinese
Communist Party of hypocrisy for condemning the United States and other
countries for interfering in China's internal affairs by criticizing its human
rights record. "China's support of world revolution is based on the concept of
'class above sovereignty'...which is equivalent to the idea of 'human rights above
sovereignty,' which the U.S. promotes today," Xu wrote.

Xu's family has
filed an appeal, which was pending at press time. They have not been allowed to
visit him since his arrest.

Guo Qinghai,
free-lanceImprisoned: September 15, 2000

Guo was arrested after
posting numerous essays on overseas online bulletin boards calling for political
reforms in China. In almost 40 essays posted under the pen name Qing Song, Guo
covered a variety of topics, including political prisoners, environmental
problems, and corruption. In one essay, Guo discussed the importance of a free
press, saying, "Those who oppose lifting media censorship argue that it will
negatively influence social stability. But according to what I have seen ...
countries that control speech may be able to maintain stability in the short
term, but the end result is often violent upheaval, coup d'états, or
war."

Guo, who worked in a bank, also wrote articles for Taiwanese
newspapers. He was a friend and classmate of writer Qi Yanchen, who was
sentenced to four years in prison on subversion charges just four days after
Guo's arrest (see above). One of Guo's last online essays appealed for Qi's
release. On April 3, 2001, a court in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, tried Guo on
subversion charges. On April 26, he was sentenced to four years in prison.

Liu Weifang, free-lanceImprisoned: October
2000

Liu was arrested sometime after September 26, 2000, when security
officials from the Ninth Agricultural Brigade District, in the Xinjiang Uighur
Autonomous Region, came to his house, confiscated his computer, and announced
that he was being officially investigated, according to an account that Liu
posted online. His most recent essay was dated October 20, 2000.

Liu had
recently posted a number of essays criticizing China's leaders and political
system in Internet chat rooms. The essays, which the author signed either with
his real name or with the initials "lgwf," covered topics such as official
corruption, development policies in China's western regions, and environmental
issues. At press time, the articles were available online at http://liuweifang.ipfox.com.

"The
reasons for my actions are all above-board," Liu wrote in one essay. "They are
not aimed at any one person or any organization; rather, they are directed at
any behavior in society that harms humanity. The goal is to speed up humanity's
progress and development." The official Xinjiang Daily characterized Liu's work
as "a major threat to national security." According to a June 15, 2001, report
in the Xinjiang Daily, the Ninth Agricultural Brigade District's
Intermediate People's Court had sentenced Liu to three years in prison.

Jiang Weiping, free-lanceImprisoned: December
4, 2000

Jiang was arrested after publishing a number of articles in the
Hong Kong magazine Qianshao (Frontline), a monthly Chinese-language
magazine focusing on mainland affairs, revealing corruption scandals in
northeastern China.

Jiang wrote the Qianshao articles, which
were published between June and September 1999, under various pen names. His
coverage exposed several major corruption scandals involving high-level
officials. Notably, Jiang reported that Shenyang vice mayor Ma Xiangdong had
lost nearly 30 million yuan (US$3.6 million) in public funds gambling in Macau
casinos. Jiang also revealed that Liaoning provincial governor Bo Xilai had
covered up corruption among his friends and family during his years as Dalian
mayor.

Soon after these cases were publicized in Qianshao and
other Hong Kong media, central authorities detained Ma. He was accused of taking
bribes, embezzling public funds, and gambling overseas and was executed for
these crimes in December 2001. After Ma's arrest, his case was widely reported
in the domestic press and used as an example in the government's ongoing fight
against corruption. However, in May 2001, Jiang was indicted for "revealing
state secrets."

The Dalian Intermediate Court held a secret trial in
September 2001. On January 25, 2002, the court formally sentenced Jiang to eight
years in prison on charges including "inciting to subvert state power" and
"illegally providing state secrets overseas." This judgment amended an earlier
decision to sentence Jiang to nine years. During the January sentencing, Jiang
proclaimed his innocence and told the court that the verdict "trampled on the
law," according to CPJ sources. He has since appealed the verdict, but the case
remained pending at year's end.

According to CPJ sources, Jiang has a
serious stomach disorder and has been denied medical treatment. Jiang's wife and
daughter have not been allowed to see or speak with him in the two years since
his arrest. His wife, Li Yanling, has been repeatedly interrogated and
threatened since her husband's arrest. In March 2002, the local public security
bureau brought her in for questioning and detained her for several
weeks.

An experienced journalist, Jiang had worked until May 2000 as the
northeastern China bureau chief for the Hong Kong paper Wen Hui Bao. He
contributed free-lance articles to Qianshao. In the 1980s, he worked as
a Dalian-based correspondent for Xinhua News Agency.

In November 2001,
CPJ honored Jiang with its annual International Press Freedom Award. In February
2002, CPJ sent appeals to Chinese president Jiang Zemin from almost 600
supporters--including CBS news anchor Dan Rather, civil rights leader Jesse
Jackson, and former U.S. ambassador to China Winston Lord--demanding Jiang's
unconditional release. That month, U.S. president George W. Bush highlighted
Jiang's case in meetings with Jiang Zemin during a state visit to China. No
progress had been made in the case by the end of 2002.

Lu
Xinhua, free-lanceImprisoned: March 10, 2001

Lu was arrested
in Wuhan, Hubei Province, after articles he had written about rural unrest and
official corruption appeared on various Internet news sites based overseas. On
April 20, 2001, he was charged with "inciting to subvert state power," a charge
frequently used against journalists who write about politically sensitive
subjects. Lu's trial began on September 18. On December 30, 2001, he was
sentenced to four years in prison.

Yang, Xu, Jin, and Zhang were
detained on March 13 and charged with subversion on April 20. The four were
active participants in the Xin Qingnian Xuehui (New Youth Study Group), an
informal gathering of individuals who explored topics related to political and
social reform and used the Internet to circulate relevant articles.

Yang, the group's most prominent member, published a Web site, Yangzi de
Sixiang Jiayuan (Yangzi's Garden of Ideas), which featured poems, essays, and
reports by various authors on subjects such as the shortcomings of rural
elections. Authorities closed the site after Yang's arrest.

When Xu, a
reporter with Xiaofei Ribao (Consumer Daily), was detained on March 13,
authorities confiscated his computer, other professional equipment, and books,
according to an account published online by his girlfriend, Wang Ying. Wang
reported that public security officials also ordered Xiaofei Ribao to
fire Xu. The newspaper has refused to discuss his case with reporters, according
to The Associated Press.

The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court
tried all four on September 28, 2001. Prosecutors focused predominately on the
group's writings, including two essays circulated on the Internet called "Be a
new citizen, reform China" and "What's to be done?" According to the indictment
papers, these articles demonstrated the group's intention "to overthrow the
Chinese Communist Party's leadership and the socialist system and subvert the
regime of the people's democratic dictatorship." No verdict had been announced
in the case by the end of 2002.

Liu Haofeng,
free-lanceImprisoned: March 2001

Liu was secretly arrested in
Shanghai in mid-March while conducting research on social conditions in rural
China for the dissident China Democracy Party (CDP). On May 16, 2001, Liu was
sentenced to "re-education through labor," a form of administrative detention
that allows officials to send individuals to labor camps for up to three years
without trial or formal charges.

After Liu's arrest, friends and family
were not informed of his whereabouts, and CDP members say they only found out
what had happened to him when they received news of his sentence in August 2001.

Sentencing papers issued by the Shanghai Re-education Through Labor
Committee cited several alleged offenses, including a policy paper and an essay
written by Liu that were published under different pen names on the CDP's Web
site. The essay focused on the current situation of China's peasants. The
committee also accused Liu of trying to form an illegal organization, the "China
Democracy Party Joint Headquarters, Second Front."

The journalist had
previously worked as an editor and reporter for various publications, including
the magazine Jishu Jingji Yu Guanli (Technology, Economy, and
Management), run by the Fujian Province Economic and Trade Committee, and
Zhongguo Shichang Jingji Bao (China Market Economy News), run by the
Central Party School in the capital, Beijing. Beginning in 1999, he worked for
Univillage, a research organization focusing on rural democratization, and
managed its Web site. He was working as a free-lance journalist at the time of
his arrest.

Wang Jinbo, free-lanceImprisoned:
May 2001

Wang, a free-lance journalist, was arrested in early May 2001
for e-mailing essays to overseas organizations arguing that the government
should change its official view that the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square were
"counterrevolutionary." In October 2001, Wang was formally charged with
"inciting to subvert state power." On November 14, the Junan County Court in
Shandong Province held a closed trial; only the journalists' relatives were
allowed to attend. On December 13, 2001, Wang was sentenced to four years in
prison.

Wang, a member of the banned China Democracy Party, had been
detained several times in the past for his political activities. In February
2001, days before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) visited Beijing, he
was briefly taken into custody after signing an open letter calling on the IOC
to pressure China to release political prisoners. A number of Wang's essays have
been posted on various Internet sites. One, titled "My Account of Police
Violations of Civil Rights," describes his January 2001 detention, during which
police interrogated him and held him for 20 hours with no food or heat after he
signed an open letter calling for the release of political prisoners.

Wang Daqi, Shengtai
YanjiuImprisoned: January 24, 2002

Wang, editor of Shengtai
Yanjiu (Ecology Research) magazine, was arrested after leaving his house to
go grocery shopping, according to the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights
in China. Several state security officers also searched his home and confiscated
copies of the magazine, his journal, and other personal items.

Soon after
his arrest, authorities said Wang was being detained under Article 109 of the
Criminal Code, which covers the crime of defection to another country. However,
on December 19, 2002, the Hefei Intermediate Court, in Anhui Province, sentenced
Wang to one year in prison on subversion charges. Prosecutors cited as evidence
articles Wang had written for Shengtai Yanjiu, including one titled "On
the 35th Anniversary of the Cultural Revolution."

Wang, 70, has
repeatedly angered authorities by publishing articles and editorials that blame
the government for China's ecological problems. In 1997, state security officers
ordered him to stop publishing Shengtai Yanjiu, but he refused. Wang's
sentence accounts for time served since February 7, 2002, when his wife was
notified of his arrest. He is due to be released on February 6, 2003.

Tao Haidong,
free-lanceImprisoned: July 9, 2002

Tao, an Internet essayist and
pro-democracy activist, was arrested in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang
Uighur Autonomous Region, and charged with "incitement to subvert state power."
According to the Minzhu Luntan (Democracy Forum) Web site, which had published
Tao's recent writing, his articles focused on political and legal reform. In one
essay, titled "Strategies for China's Social Reforms," Tao wrote that "the
Chinese Communist Party and democracy activists throughout society should unite
to push forward China's freedom and democratic development or else stand
condemned through the ages."

Previously, in 1999, Tao was sentenced to
three years of "re-education through labor" in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province,
according to the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights in China, because of
his essays and his work on a book titled Xin Renlei Shexiang
(Imaginings of a New Human Race). After his early release in 2001, Tao began
writing essays and articles and publishing them on various domestic and overseas
Web sites.

In early January 2003, the Urumqi Intermediate Court tried
Tao, but no sentence had been announced by press time.

Zhang Wei, Shishi Zixun, Redian
JiyaoImprisoned: July 19, 2002

Zhang was arrested and charged
with illegal publishing after producing and selling two underground newspapers
in Chongqing, in central China. According to an account published on the Web
site of the Chongqing Press and Publishing Administration, a provincial
government body that governs all local publications, beginning in April 2001,
Zhang edited two newspapers, Shishi Zixun (Current Events) and
Redian Jiyao (Summary of the Main Points), which included articles and
graphics he had downloaded from the Internet.

Two of Zhang's business
associates, Zuo Shangwen and Ou Yan, were also arrested on July 19, 2002, and
indicted for their involvement with the publications. Zuo printed the
publications in neighboring Sichuan Province while Ou managed the publications'
finances. At the time of their arrests, police confiscated 9,700 copies of
Shishi Zixun.

The official account of their arrests stated that
the two publications had "flooded" Chongqing's publishing market. The government
declared that "the political rumors, shocking 'military reports,' and other
articles in these illegal publications misled the public, poisoned the youth,
negatively influenced society and sparked public indignation." Zhang, Zuo, and
Ou printed more than 1.5 million copies of the publications and sold them in
Chongqing, Chengdu, and other cities.

On December 25, 2002, the Yuzhong
District Court in Chongqing sentenced Zhang to six years in prison and fined him
100,000 yuan (US$12,000), the amount that police said he had earned in profits
from the publications. Zuo was sentenced to five years and fined 50,000 yuan
(US$6,000), while Ou was sentenced to two years in prison.

Chen Shaowen,
free-lanceImprisoned: August 2002

Chen, a free-lance writer, was
arrested on suspicion of "using the Internet to subvert state power," according
to a September 14 report in the official Hunan Daily. The article did
not give the date of Chen's arrest, although Boxun News, an overseas online news
service, reported that he was arrested on August 6.

Chen, who lives in
Lianyuan, Hunan Province, has written numerous essays and articles for various
overseas Chinese-language Web sites, including the online magazine Huang Hua
Gang and Minzhu Luntan (Democracy Forum). According to his biography on the
Minzhu Luntan Web site (asiademo.org), Chen's essays covered
topics including China's unemployment problem, social inequalities, and flaws in
the legal system.

The Hunan Daily article accused Chen of
"repeatedly browsing reactionary websites ... sending in numerous articles of
all sorts, fabricating, distorting and exaggerating relevant facts, and
vilifying the Chinese Communist Party and the socialist system." The report
stated that Chen had published more than 40 articles on overseas "reactionary"
Web sites. Chen is still under investigation, and it is not clear whether he has
been formally charged. His family has not been allowed to visit him in
detention.

Liu Di,
free-lanceImprisoned: November 7, 2002

Liu disappeared on November 7.
The following day, security officials came to her house, which she shares with
her 80-year-old grandmother, and confiscated Liu's computer, several books, and
other personal belongings. Officials told her family that Liu was being
investigated for "participating in an illegal organization." Authorities have
not offered her family any further explanation as to her
whereabouts.

Liu, 22, is a fourth-year student in the psychology
department at Beijing Teacher's University. Using the pseudonym Buxiugang Laoshu
(Stainless Steel Mouse), she wrote several online essays criticizing the Chinese
government.

In one essay, Liu wrote that, "My ideals are the ideals of an
open society... In my view, freedom does not just include external freedom, but
freedom within our hearts and minds." In another essay, Liu called on Chinese
citizens to stop reading official news and to read only "reactionary" materials.
She also wrote in support of Huang Qi and Yang Zili, Web site publishers who
have been arrested and charged with subversion.

Liu had expressed fears
of being arrested and said that school authorities had called her in for
questioning several times prior to her disappearance, according to online
accounts written by her friends and acquaintances.

Liu's arrest became a
rallying point for Chinese Internet users worldwide, and in December her
supporters created a Web site (http://171.64.233.179) and launched a
global petition demanding her release. By year's end, the petition had gathered
more than 700 signatures from inside and outside China.

Liu's
disappearance came one day before the opening of the 16th Communist Party
Congress. During the run-up to the congress, Chinese authorities escalated a
crackdown on free expression by arresting government critics, closing Web sites,
and tightening already stringent control over the official media.

Arévalo Padrón, founder of the Línea Sur Press news agency, remains
in prison despite being eligible for parole, and his health has suffered as a
result of his prolonged imprisonment.

On October 31, 1997, a provincial
court sentenced Arévalo Padrón to six years in prison for "lack of respect" for
President Fidel Castro Ruz and Cuban State Council member Carlos Lage. The
charges stemmed from a series of interviews Arévalo Padrón gave in late 1997 to
Miami-based radio stations in which he alleged that while Cuban farmers starved,
helicopters were taking fresh meat from the countryside to President Castro,
Lage, and other Communist Party officials in the capital, Havana.

The
journalist began his sentence on November 18, 1997, in a maximum- security
prison. On April 11, 1998, State Security officers beat Arévalo Padrón and
placed him in solitary confinement after accusing him of making anti-government
posters. Later, another prisoner was found to have made the
posters.

Arévalo Padrón has also suffered bouts of bronchitis and was
reportedly treated twice for high blood pressure in the prison infirmary. On
January 8, 2000, the journalist was transferred to Labor Camp No. 20, where he
served four months.

On April 6, 2000, the journalist was sent to the
overcrowded and unsanitary San Marcos Labor Camp, where he worked chopping weeds
with a machete in sugarcane fields. Prison authorities constantly watched
Arévalo Padrón, censored his incoming and outgoing mail, and threatened to send
him back to a maximum-security prison if he did not meet his production
quota.

Because of his strenuous work at the labor camps, Arévalo Padrón
developed lower back pain and coronary blockage. After ignoring Arévalo Padrón's
pain for weeks, in September 2000 prison authorities allowed him to see a
doctor, who determined that Arévalo Padrón's poor health disqualified him from
physical work, and that he should permanently wear an orthopedic
brace.

In October 2000, prison authorities informed Arévalo Padrón that
his parole had been approved. But he remained in the labor camp, a violation of
Cuban law.

Early in 2001, Arévalo Padrón was transferred to the El
Diamante Labor Camp, where prison officers continued to harass him. In February
2001, the journalist's colleagues reported that he had again developed high
blood pressure. In early March, Arévalo Padrón complained that officials refused
to take him to a hospital outside the labor camp for treatment. On March 21,
prison authorities relented after pressure from friends, family, and press
freedom organizations. A heart specialist recommended that Arévalo Padrón check
his blood pressure daily, take medication, avoid tension, and stop
smoking.

In May 2001, prison officers routinely ignored the journalist's
requests to have his blood pressure checked and often withheld his medication.
During the same period, a court again denied him parole despite his poor
health.

On June 30, 2001, the journalist was transferred to another labor
camp. For the prison transfer, he had to walk several miles in the heat carrying
his belongings, the journalist said in a letter to colleagues. In the new labor
camp, he was assigned to a cell for chronically ill prisoners. He was exempt
from physical work but lacked adequate medical attention and food. Despite his
legal right to be paroled, his jailers told him that he would serve his entire
sentence. In October 2001, judges ignored his request for parole, and the
journalist continued to report constant harassment.

In November 2001, the
European Union requested that Arévalo Padrón be released and allowed to travel
to Spain, but authorities did not respond. The journalist's request to attend a
January 2002 appointment with the U.S. Interests Section Refugee Unit in Havana
was also ignored.

In July 2002, Arévalo Padrón was transferred back to
the maximum-security Ariza Prison. In December 2002, he suffered from a severe
fever and was treated with antibiotics. According to his colleagues, Arévalo
Padrón's wife, Libertad Acosta, suspects he contracted a severe bacterial
infection. In addition, he suffers from migraines and high blood pressure, and
his family and friends say his mental health has deteriorated. Arévalo Padrón's
six-year sentence ends in October 2003.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF
CONGO: 2

Raymond Kabala, Alerte
PlusImprisoned: July 19, 2002

Kabala, publication director of
the independent daily Alerte Plus, based in the capital, Kinshasa, was
arrested by plainclothes police officers and detained at the provincial police
department. The next day, he was transferred to Kinshasa's Penitentiary and
Reeducation Center (CPRK).

According to local sources, Kabala's arrest
stemmed from a July 11 Alerte Plus article reporting that Minister of
Public Order and Security Mwenze Kongolo had allegedly been poisoned. The
newspaper learned that the information was false and published a correction the
next day.

According to the local press freedom group Journaliste En
Danger (JED), Kabala claims that authorities repeatedly questioned him about the
article's sources and tortured him during his detention.

On the afternoon
of July 22, officers of the Kinshasa/Matete Appeals Court Prosecutor's Office
arrested Delly Bonsange, the journalist who had written the offending article.
He spent the night in police custody, and authorities questioned him about the
report the next day. He was later transferred to the CPRK.

On September
6, a Kinshasa court convicted Kabala and Bonsange of "harmful accusations,"
"writing falsehoods," and "falsification of a public document." Kabala was
sentenced to 12 months in prison and fined US$200,000. Bonsange was sentenced to
six months and fined US$100,000.

According to a JED representative who
attended the court proceedings, the "falsification of a public document" charge
came because the actual address of Alerte Plus' office differs from the
one listed in the paper.

On September 26, Bonsange was transferred to
Kinshasa's General Hospital after a doctor found his blood sugar levels
unusually high. The journalist told JED that, during the first days of his
detention, officials had barred him from taking his diabetes medication and
following his usual diet.

According to JED, on November 21, a Kinshasa
appeals court ruled that the charge against Bonsange of "writing falsehoods" was
unfounded but upheld the charge of "falsification of a public document." The
journalist's six-month prison sentence was dropped, and he was released on
December 3. He was, however, fined US$750.

The court upheld the charges
and the fine against Kabala but reduced his prison sentence from 12 to seven
months.

Kadima Mukombe,
Radio KilimandjaroImprisoned: December 31, 2002

Mukombe, a journalist
for the private Tshikapa-based Radio Kilimandjaro, was arrested by agents of the
Congolese Armed Forces (FAC) Military Intelligence Branch
(DEMIAP).

Mukombe hosts a local-language radio program that focuses on
development issues in Tshikapa and the surrounding region of the diamond-rich
West Kasai Province. According to the local press freedom group Journaliste En
Danger (JED), on his December 30 program, Mukombe criticized several local
military officials who have allegedly become diamond traders and have allowed
their soldiers to steal from the local population. On the program, Mukombe
interviewed diamond miners who denounced harassment by these military
officials.

Mukombe was accused of "insulting the army." He was held at
the local DEMIAP station until January 2, 2003, when he was transferred to the
Tshikapa Central Prison. Eyewitnesses said FAC agents beat Mukombe at the time
of his arrest, according to JED.

CPJ was unable to confirm whether
authorities intended to prosecute Mukombe. Local sources said it is possible
that Mukombe could be tried for the offense in the military court system, which
has been known to hand down heavier sentences than civilian
courts.

Journalists in the capital, Kinshasa, said that Mukombe had also
been arrested on December 23 following the broadcast of a program during which
he denounced the poverty endured by the local population while valuable diamonds
are mined on a daily basis in the city. Mukombe was released that day after
signing an agreement to no longer "set the population against the established
authorities," only to be re-arrested days later. He remained in prison at press
time.

EGYPT: 1

Mamdouh
Mahran, Al-NabaaImprisoned: September 30,
2001

Mahran, editor of the controversial weekly newspaper
Al-Nabaa, was sentenced to three years in prison and fined 200 Egyptian
pounds (about US$50) on September 16, 2001, for allegedly undermining public
security, publishing scandalous photos, insulting religion, and causing civil
turmoil.

The charges stemmed from a June 17, 2001, Al-Nabaa
cover story alleging that a Coptic Christian monk had sex with several women in
a Coptic monastery in southern Egypt and filmed the encounters to blackmail the
women. The piece was accompanied by provocative photos. The Al-Nabaa
article led to demonstrations and riots among Egypt's Coptic minority, who
viewed the story as insulting to their religion.

Coptic Church officials
vehemently denied that sexual acts had occurred in the monastery and pointed out
that the monk in question had been defrocked five years earlier, a fact omitted
from Al-Nabaa's account.

Mahran was to begin his sentence on
October 1, 2001, but he allegedly suffered a heart attack the day before. He was
taken, under guard, to a private heart trauma center in the capital, Cairo,
where he remained hospitalized under guard at the end of
2002.

ERITREA: 18

Zemenfes Haile,
TsigenayImprisoned: January 1999

Sometime in early 1999,
Haile, founder and manager of the private weekly Tsigenay, was detained
by Eritrean authorities and sent to Zara Labor Camp in the country's lowland
desert. Authorities accused Haile of failing to complete the National Service
Program, but sources told CPJ that the journalist completed the program in
1994.

Near the end of 2000, Haile was transferred to an unknown location,
and friends and relatives have not seen or heard from him since. CPJ sources in
Eritrea believe that Haile's continued detention is part of the government's
general crackdown on the press, which began in September
2001.

Ghebrehiwet Keleta, TsigenayImprisoned: July 2000

Keleta, reporter for the private weekly
Tsigenay, was kidnapped by security agents on his way to work sometime
in July 2000 and has not been seen since. The reasons for Keleta's arrest remain
unclear, but CPJ sources in Eritrea believe that Keleta's continued detention is
part of the government's general crackdown on the press, which began in
September 2001.

Beyene, reporter for the
independent weekly MeQaleh, and Haile, a journalist at the
pro-government Haddas Eritrea, were arrested some time in the fall of
2001 and have been missing since. CPJ was unable to confirm the reasons for
their arrests, but Eritrean sources believe that the detention of the
journalists is part of the government's general crackdown on the press, which
began in September 2001.

Beginning September 18,
2001, Eritrean security forces arrested at least 10 local journalists. Two
others fled the country. The arrests came less than a week after authorities
abruptly closed all privately owned newspapers, allegedly to safeguard national
unity in the face of growing political turmoil in the tiny Horn of Africa
nation.

International news reports quoted presidential adviser Yemane
Gebremeskel as saying that the journalists could have been arrested for avoiding
military service. Sources in the capital, Asmara, however, say that at least two
of the detained journalists, free-lance photographer Fsehaye and Mohamed Ali,
editor of Tsigenay, are legally exempt from national service. Fsehaye
is reportedly exempt because he is an independence war veteran, while Mohamed
Ali is apparently well over the maximum age for military service.

CPJ
sources in Asmara maintain that the suspension and subsequent arrests of
independent journalists were part of a full-scale government effort to suppress
political dissent in advance of December 2001 elections, which the government
canceled without explanation.

On March 31, 2002, the 10 jailed reporters
began a hunger strike to protest their continued detention without charge,
according to local and international sources. In a message smuggled from inside
the Police Station One detention center in Asmara, the journalists said they
would refuse food until they were either released or charged and given a fair
trial. Three days later, nine of the hunger strikers were transferred to an
undisclosed detention facility. According to CPJ sources, the 10th journalist,
Swedish national Isaac, was sent to a hospital, where he is being treated for
posttraumatic stress disorder, a result of alleged torture while in police
custody. His health condition remained unspecified at the end of
2002.

During a July 2002 fact-finding mission to Asmara, a presidential
official told a CPJ delegation that only "about eight" news professionals were
being held in detention facilities, whose whereabouts he refused to disclose.

Simret Seyoum,
SetitImprisoned: January 6, 2002

During a July 2002
fact-finding mission to the capital, Asmara, CPJ delegates confirmed that
Seyoum, a writer and general manager at the banned private weekly
Setit, was arrested while trying to cross Eritrea's border with Sudan.
The driver of the minivan carrying Seyoum and others was also arrested, after
border patrol agents opened fire on his vehicle, chased it, and captured some of
its passengers. At least one of the fugitives, an Eritrean journalist who chose
to remain anonymous, survived the incident and reached the Sudanese capital,
Khartoum, days later.

Seyoum, a hero of Eritrea's 30-year independence
war against Ethiopia, is being held in solitary confinement at the Hadish
Maaskar detention facility near the town of Gyrmayka on the border with Sudan,
according to CPJ sources in Eritrea.

During a July 2002 fact-finding mission to the capital,
Asmara, CPJ delegates confirmed that around February 15, Eritrean authorities
arrested Said, a journalist for the state-run Eritrean State Television (ETV),
Saadia (full name unknown), a female journalist with the Arabic-language service
of ETV, and Aljezeeri, a journalist for Eritrean State Radio. All three were
still in government custody at the end of 2002.

The reasons for their
arrests are unclear, but CPJ sources in Eritrea believe their continued
detention is related to the government's general crackdown on the press, which
began in September 2001.

ETHIOPIA: 1Tewodros Kassa,
EthiopImprisoned: July 7, 2002

Kassa, former editor-in-chief
of the Amharic-language weekly Ethiop, was sentenced to two years in
prison on two counts of violating Ethiopia's restrictive Press Proclamation No.
34 of 1992 in three articles published in Ethiop in 1997.

The
first charge, "disseminating false information that could incite people to
political violence," stemmed from two stories: The first reported that the
ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had fired
personnel at the Debre Zeit air force base who previously worked for the former
regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam and replaced them with pro-EPRDF workers; the
second article alleged that unidentified individuals had failed in an attempt to
bomb a popular hotel in the capital, Addis Ababa.

The second charge,
"defamation," resulted from another 1997 article in Ethiop, which
alleged that a private investment company specializing in natural-resource
development had connections in the EPRDF government. According to a source at
Ethiop, Kassa was charged even after the newspaper complied with a
government order forcing the publication to print a letter of apology.

At
the time of his conviction, Kassa was already in jail. In mid-May, he was
imprisoned for missing a court hearing related to the charges. Sources in Addis
Ababa said Kassa had mistaken the date of the hearing.

Diallo, founding publisher, owner, and columnist of the independent
bimonthly L'Enquêteur, was arrested by gendarmes in the capital,
Conakry. The arrest followed the publication of an article in that day's edition
of L'Enquêteur alleging that army inspector general Col. Mamadou Baldé
had resigned. Baldé denied the allegation and accused his detractors of "wanting
to do him in," Agence France-Presse reported.

Diallo was charged with
defamation, and on December 20, he was transferred from the gendarmerie to
Conakry's Central Prison to await trial. On January 3, 2003, Diallo was
provisionally released from prison. On January 7, he was convicted of defamation
and sentenced to a year in prison. However, shortly after the sentence was
announced, President Lansana Conté pardoned Diallo.

INDIA: 1Iftikhar
Gilani, Kashmir TimesImprisoned: June 9,
2002

Police arrested Gilani, New Delhi bureau chief for the Jammu-based
newspaper Kashmir Times, following a raid on his home earlier that day
by various agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, the Special Branch of
Police, and the Income Tax Department. Authorities confiscated the journalist's
computer and several documents, including bank statements, according to his
wife. Gilani, who is a well-regarded independent journalist, also reports for
the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and the Pakistani newspapers The
Friday Times and The Nation. The journalist's detention coincided
with the arrest the same day of his father-in-law, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a
senior separatist leader in Kashmir.

Authorities accused Gilani of
possessing classified documents "prejudicial to the safety and security of the
country." He was charged under India's Official Secrets Act, a draconian,
colonial-era law. However, the document cited by investigators as central to the
case had been published in a Pakistani journal and was readily available on the
Internet. Though journalists and international organizations, including CPJ,
highlighted this information in the days immediately following Gilani's arrest,
military intelligence officials conceded the point only in December.

In a
December 12 evaluation of the document in question, intelligence officials
admitted that the paper was "easily available" and of "negligible security
value." The government, however, did not withdraw the case against Gilani until
January 10, 2003. The Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Delhi ordered Gilani's
release on January 13.

Indonesian troops arrested
McCulloch, an academic and free-lance journalist, along with her friend, Joy Lee
Sadler, while conducting security operations in Keuleut District in restive Aceh
Province. The two were taken to the South Aceh District Police
Station.

Soldiers also arrested the women's Acehnese interpreter, Fitrah
bin Amin, but she was soon released without charge.

Spokesman Maj.
Taufik Sugiono told The Associated Press (AP) that the women were carrying a
computer disk with digital images and documents relating to the rebel Free Aceh
Movement, known by its Indonesian acronym, GAM. "We questioned them as they were
foreigners carrying rebel documents in a conflict-area," Sugiono told the AP.
"We just wanted to know what are they doing here." In interviews with
journalists, McCulloch and Sadler later claimed that during their detention in
South Aceh, they were sexually harassed, beaten, and threatened at
knifepoint.

GAM rebels have been fighting for Aceh's independence from
Indonesia since 1976 in a conflict that has killed more than 12,000 people
during the last decade alone. McCulloch, a British national who most recently
worked as a lecturer at the University of Tasmania in Australia, has written
frequently on Aceh, specifically about the military's alleged profiteering from
the resource-rich province. Sadler, a U.S. national, is a nurse who has treated
refugees in conflict zones.

On September 17, police transferred
McCulloch and Sadler to a detention center in the provincial capital, Banda
Aceh, and announced that the two were formally under investigation. Police
threatened to accuse them of espionage but ultimately charged them with carrying
out "activities incompatible with tourist visas" under Article 50 of the
Immigration Law, punishable by up to five years' imprisonment. Though foreign
correspondents accused of visa infractions in Indonesia have generally been
deported, police expressed their intention to use this case as a stern warning.
"Police will make strong efforts to intensively investigate so this can become a
lesson for foreigners who violate the law in Aceh and Indonesia," Aceh police
spokesman Taufik Sutiyono told the Agence France-Presse news
agency.

McCulloch, who maintains that she was visiting friends in Aceh,
told journalists that she believes she was targeted because of her critical
writings about alleged abuses committed by Indonesian security forces in Aceh.

Trial proceedings began in Banda Aceh on November 25, and on December
30, McCulloch and Sadler were sentenced to five months and four months in
prison, respectively. While announcing his decision, Judge Asril Marwan said
that McCulloch received the harsher sentence because her actions "could have
threatened national security and the territorial integrity of the Republic of
Indonesia," according to London's Guardian newspaper.

Both
women will receive credit for time served, which means that McCulloch's sentence
is due to expire in February 2003. Sadler was freed on January 10,
2003.

IRAN: 2

Akbar
Ganji, Sobh-e-Emrooz, FathImprisoned: April 22,
2000

Ganji, a leading investigative reporter for the reformist daily
Sobh-e-Emrooz and a member of the editorial board of the pro-reform
daily Fath, was arrested and prosecuted in both Iran's Press Court and
Revolutionary Court.

The case in the Press Court stemmed from Ganji's
investigative articles about the 1998 killings of several dissidents and
intellectuals that implicated top intelligence officials and former president
Hashemi Rafsanjani. In the Revolutionary Court, Ganji was accused of making
propaganda against the Islamic regime and threatening national security in
comments he made at an April 2000 conference in Berlin on the future of the
reform movement in Iran.

The Press Court case remained pending at the end
of 2002, but on January 13, 2001, the Revolutionary Court sentenced Ganji to 10
years in prison, followed by five years of internal exile. In May 2001, after
Ganji had already served more than a year in prison, an appellate court reduced
his punishment to six months.

The Iranian Justice Department then
appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, arguing that the appellate court had
committed errors in commuting the original 10-year sentence. The Supreme Court
overturned the appellate court's decision and referred the case to a different
appeals court. On July 16, 2001, that court sentenced Ganji to six years in
jail. According to the state news agency IRNA, the ruling is "definitive,"
meaning that it cannot be appealed.

The legal situation was not clear,
however. IRNA quoted an official with the Tehran-based Society for Defending
Press Freedom in August 2001 as saying, "No one as yet knows which judge or
which officials of the judiciary have made this latest decision." The case's
outcome was still unclear at the end of 2002.

Emadeddin Baghi,
Fath, NeshatImprisoned: May 29, 2000

Baghi, a contributor to
the banned daily Neshat who was on the editorial board of another
outlawed daily, Fath, was detained during a closed-door trial. On July
17, 2001, Tehran's Press Court sentenced him to five-and-a-half years in
prison.

According to the state news agency IRNA, Baghi was charged with
publishing articles that "questioned the validity of ... Islamic law,"
"threatening national security," and "spreading unsubstantiated news stories"
about the role of "agents of the Intelligence Ministry in the serial murder of
intellectuals and dissidents in 1998."

The charges were based on
complaints from a number of government agencies, including the Intelligence
Ministry, the conservative-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, and
former security officials.

The charges also mentioned a 1999 piece Baghi
had published in Neshat responding to another article criticizing the
death penalty that had itself landed Neshat editor Mashallah
Shamsolvaezin in jail. The closed-door trial began on May 1, 2000. In late
October 2001, an appeals court reduced the sentence to three years. Baghi
remains in Tehran's Evin Prison.

Duvanov, a prominent 49-year-old journalist known for his criticism
of Kazakh authorities, was arrested on suspicion of raping a minor. The
journalist was officially charged on November 6.

Duvanov denied the rape
accusation, saying it was a government effort to discredit him. The charges came
just as Duvanov was preparing to leave for the United States, where he was
scheduled to give a series of talks at Washington, D.C.- and New York-based
think tanks about political conditions in Kazakhstan.

Shortly after his
arrest, Duvanov went on a hunger strike to protest his detention. He ended the
strike after 13 days, when prison authorities began to force-feed him. His
trial, which began on December 24, was ongoing at year's end.

Duvanov,
who writes for opposition-financed Web sites and is the editor-in-chief of a
bulletin published by the Almaty-based Kazakhstan Bureau for Human Rights and
the Rule of Law, is known for his biting criticism of Kazakhstan's political
system and high-level officials, including Kazakh president Nursultan
Nazarbayev. Authorities have frequently harassed him in reprisal for his work.

On the evening of August 28, 2002, three unknown assailants beat and
stabbed Duvanov in the stairwell of his apartment building, saying of his work,
"If you carry on, you'll be made a total cripple."

On July 9, 2002, the
General Prosecutor's Office charged him with "infringing the honor and dignity
of the president"--a criminal offense punishable by a fine or up to three years
in prison--after he accused Nazarbayev of corruption in an article. Authorities
later dropped that criminal case against him without any
explanation.

Bessisso and al-Dakhil were
sentenced to life in prison for their work with Al-Nida', a newspaper
that Iraqi authorities launched during Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in 1990. At
the end of 2002, they were the last remaining imprisoned journalists in Kuwait,
which jailed 17 reporters and editors for their work with Al-Nida'
following the Gulf War, charging them with collaboration.

The defendants
were reportedly tortured during their interrogations. Their trial, which began
on May 19, 1991, in a martial-law court, failed to meet international standards
of justice. In particular, prosecutors failed to rebut the journalists' defense
that they had been forced to work for the Iraqi newspaper.

On June 16,
1991, the journalists were sentenced to death. Ten days later, following
international protests, all martial-law death sentences were commuted to life
imprisonment. The other 15 journalists were freed gradually starting in 1996,
most on the occasion of Kuwaiti emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah's annual
prisoner amnesties in February.

In 2002, the emir pardoned Bessisso and
al-Dakhil. But because Bessisso is not a citizen of any country, no nation is
willing to accept him as a refugee, according to his brother, who lives in the
United States. Al-Dakhil, a naturalized Kuwaiti citizen from Iraq, lost her
citizenship as a result of her conviction and is also awaiting deportation. Both
are currently being held in Kuwaiti jails while they try to find countries of
residence.

MALDIVES: 3

Mohamed Zaki,
SandhaanuImprisoned: January 30, 2002

Ibrahim
Luthfee, SandhaanuImprisoned: January 31,
2002

Ahmed Didi, SandhaanuImprisoned: February 5,
2002

Zaki, Luthfee, and Didi, businessmen who founded, edited, and wrote
for the Dhivehi-language Internet publication Sandhaanu, were arrested
along with their secretary Fathimath Nisreen. Luthfee, Nisreen, and Zaki were
arrested in the capital, Malé. On February 5, Sri Lankan authorities arrested
Didi in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for alleged travel document violations while he was
en route to Bangkok for medical treatment for a heart condition. According to
Luthfee, Sri Lankan authorities deported Didi to the Maldives, where he was
promptly arrested. Zaki, a native of Mali who lives in Malaysia, was visiting
the Maldives from Malaysia at the time of his arrest.

All four were held
in solitary confinement for five months until their sentencing on July 7, 2002.
After a summary three-day trial, they were convicted of defamation, incitement
to violence, and treason. Didi, Luthfee, and Zaki were sentenced to life
imprisonment and one year of banishment for defamation, and Nisreen received a
10-year prison sentence, with a one-year banishment for defamation. The four
were sent to Maafushi Prison, which is known for its harsh conditions, 18 miles
(29 kilometers) south of Malé.

Before Sandhaanu was effectively
closed in early 2002, the Web site attracted a large audience by local
standards, according to Luthfee. Started in August 2001, the independent
publication criticized the government for alleged abuse of power and corruption
and called for political reform. There is no independent press in the Maldives.
Television and radio are state-run, and the country's three newspapers are under
government control.

Although the Maldivian government claims that the
four received a fair trial, Luthfee told CPJ that their request for legal
representation at the time of the trial was denied.

A Maldives
government representative in London sent a statement to the BBC in 2003 claiming
that the charges against Didi, Luthfee, Nisreen, and Zaki were "purely criminal"
because their publication was not officially registered, and that the four were
convicted of inciting people "to violence...against a lawfully elected
government."

Luthfee disagreed and told CPJ that the case against them
was politically motivated, and that it was intended as a warning to others who
criticize the government. Since the media are fully controlled by the Maldivian
government, Luthfee says it is impossible to view opinions or write anything
critical about the government in the official press. Therefore, Didi, Luthfee,
and Zaki decided to launch their independent publication online from Malaysia,
where Zaki emigrated from Mali in 1990. Because they were concerned about
government surveillance inside the Maldives, Didi and Luftee sent the text of
Sandhaanu to Zaki in Malaysia in PDF files to upload and distribute from
there.

On May 19, 2003, Luthfee escaped from custody while receiving
medical treatment in Sri Lanka and has since received asylum outside the region.
It has been reported that conditions for the three remaining people worsened
after Luthfee's escape, and that Didi and Zaki were again placed in solitary
confinement.

In the wake of prison riots in September 2003, Maldivian
President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom pledged to reform his county's prison system. In
mid-December 2003, Zaki and Didi's prison sentences were reduced to 15 years,
and Nisreen's sentence was halved to five years. She was released from prison
but banished to Feeali Island, south of Malé, on December 13, 2003.

Since March 2003, Didi has been hospitalized because of his
deteriorating heart condition, according to Luthfee. Doctors have asked for his
early release because he needs bypass surgery.

Zaki was allowed to go
home on medical leave for two weeks in May for treatment of kidney stones, back
pain, and prostate problems.

Police raided the
offices of three publications closely associated with Nepal's Maoist movement:
the daily Janadisha, the weekly Janadesh, and the monthly
Dishabodh. Officers arrested nine staff members, including seven
journalists, and also confiscated equipment and written materials. The arrested
journalists included Om Sharma, an editor for Janadisha; Khil Bahadur
Bhandari, executive editor of Janadesh; Govinda Acharya, an editor of
Janadesh; Dipendra Rokaya, an editorial assistant at Janadesh;
Deepak Sapkota, a reporter for Janadesh; Ishwarchandra Gyawali,
executive editor of Dishabodh; and Manarishi Dhital, an editorial
assistant for Dishabodh.

All were arrested about two hours
before the government announced a state of emergency and issued a sweeping
anti-terrorism ordinance that criminalized any contact with or support for
Maoist rebels.

On November 5, 2002, nearly one year after their arrests,
authorities released Rokaya, Sapkota, Gyawali, and Dhital without charge.
Acharya was released on December 16, 2002, along with Chandraman Shrestha, the
managing editor of Janadesh, who had been arrested
separately.

Sharma, a veteran journalist who is known as an outspoken
supporter of the radical left, and Bhandari, also a longtime journalist
associated with pro-Maoist papers, remained imprisoned in Kathmandu's Central
Jail at the end of 2002.

Dev Kumar Yadav,
JanadeshImprisoned: November 28, 2001

Yadav, a reporter for
the weekly Janadesh and daily Janadisha, was arrested in the
southeastern district of Siraha. Authorities arrested him under the provisions
of a sweeping anti-terrorism ordinance introduced in November 2001 allowing for
the arrest of anyone suspected of supporting Maoist rebels. Authorities released
him without charge on January 7, 2003, according to the Kathmandu-based Center
for Human Rights and Democratic Studies.

Choudhary was an advising editor at the weekly Nawa
Paricharcha and the former editor-in-chief of Yugayan, both
published in Tikapur, a town in the far-western district of Kailali. He was also
the principal of the National Lower Secondary School in Patharaiya School. He
was arrested at the school on the morning of December 6, 2001, and brought to
the Tikapur police station, where Sama Thapa, editor of Yugayan, was
also detained. Both journalists were later transferred to the regional police
station in Shangadhi, the district headquarters of Kailali.

Authorities
arrested them under the provisions of a sweeping anti-terrorism ordinance
introduced in November 2001 that criminalized any contact with or support for
the Maoist rebels. Choudhary, who had written articles supportive of the Maoist
rebels, also spent time detained at the army barracks in Dhangadhi, according to
a local human rights monitoring group.

Thapa was released without charge
on April 4, 2002, "because they could not get any proof of his affiliation with
the Maoists," said one journalist. Choudhary was still detained at the end of
2002 at an undisclosed location, according to the Center for Human Rights and
Democratic Studies, a Kathmandu-based press freedom
group.

Komal Nath Baral,
SwavimanImprisoned: December 21, 2001

Janardan
Biyogi, SwavimanImprisoned: December 27, 2001

Army
soldiers arrested Baral, an editor at Swaviman weekly, in Pokhara, the
capital of Kaski District. Swaviman, which is published from Pokhara,
was a small newspaper characterized by local journalists as supportive of the
Maoist rebel movement. Several days after Baral's arrest, on December 27,
soldiers arrested Biyogi, subeditor of Swaviman.

Authorities
arrested the two under the provisions of a sweeping anti-terrorism ordinance
introduced in November 2001 that criminalized any contact with or support for
Maoist rebels. Both men were originally held in army custody in Kaski, then
transferred to a jail in neighboring Tanahu District, and ultimately imprisoned
at Kaski Jail.

Badri Prasad Sharma, Baglung
WeeklyImprisoned: December 25, 2001

Security forces arrested
Sharma, editor and publisher of Baglung Weekly, at his home in the
midwestern town of Baglung. Authorities arrested him under the provisions of a
sweeping anti-terrorism ordinance introduced in November 2001 that criminalized
any contact with or support for Maoist rebels.

Local journalists and
human rights activists said that Sharma was viewed as an independent journalist,
though the paper often covered news about the Maoist rebels.

"Security
persons suspect his newspaper is close to the Maoists because his newspaper
covers pro-Maoist news," one journalist from Baglung told CPJ. A delegation from
the Baglung chapter of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists visited local
administrative officials and vouched for Sharma's journalistic credentials.
However, he remained imprisoned in Baglung Jail at the end of 2002.

Debram Yadav, Blast Times, Jana
AasthaImprisoned: January 1, 2002

Yadav, a reporter for the
popular regional tabloid Blast Times and the Kathmandu-based paper
Jana Aastha, was arrested in the southeastern district of Saptari. He
was arrested under the provisions of a sweeping anti-terrorism ordinance
introduced in November 2001 that criminalized any contact with or support for
Maoist rebels. He was imprisoned at Saptari Jail. Yadav was released on January
17, 2003, according to news reports.

Posh Raj
Poudel, Chure SandeshImprisoned: January 23,
2002

Police arrested Poudel, executive editor of the newspaper Chure
Sandesh, in the capital, Kathmandu, along with his colleague Suresh Chandra
Adhikari, the paper's editor-in-chief. Police initially detained them at the
Hanuman Dhoka Police Detention Center in Kathmandu but later transferred them to
southern Chitwan District, along the Indian border. Chure Sandesh was a
pro-Maoist newspaper published from Chitwan.

On November 26, 2001, the
government declared a state of emergency and issued sweeping anti-terrorism
legislation that criminalized any contact with or support for Maoist rebels. Two
days later, police raided the offices of Chure Sandesh, as well as the
home of the weekly's publisher, where they seized documents and copies of the
paper, according to the Kathmandu-based Center for Human Rights and Democratic
Studies.

Adhikari was released on November 8, 2002, but Poudel remained
imprisoned at Bharatpur Jail in Chitwan at year's end.

Sapkota, a
subeditor for Narayani Khabar Weekly and reporter for the newspaper
Adarsha Samaj, was arrested in the southern district of Chitwan.
Authorities detained him under the provisions of a sweeping anti-terrorism
ordinance introduced in November 2001 that criminalized any contact with or
support for Maoist rebels. Sapkota, who is also a schoolteacher, had previously
contributed articles to the pro-Maoist publications Janadesh and
Mahima. He was imprisoned at Bharatpur Jail in Chitwan.

Tiwari, executive editor of the
daily Janadisha, and Sigdel, a reporter for Janadisha, were
arrested on May 19, according to sources close to the paper. The next day,
police arrested Sen, editor of Janadisha and former editor of the
weekly Janadesh; Neupane, a reporter for Janadisha; and
Khadka, a reporter for the weekly Jana Ahwan. The journalists, all of
whom worked for publications closely associated with the Maoist rebels, were
detained under the provisions of a sweeping anti-terrorism ordinance introduced
in November 2001 that criminalized any contact with or support for Maoist
rebels.

The journalists' arrests were widely reported in the local press.
However, after news reports emerged in late June 2002 that Sen may have been
killed in police custody, a government-appointed commission said it found no
evidence that he had ever been detained. Officials have since denied
responsibility for Sen's fate. Because Sen's body has not been recovered and no
credible investigation has been undertaken to determine his status, CPJ holds
the government accountable for his fate.

At the end of 2002, Tiwari was
imprisoned at Bhadra Bandi Jail, Sigdel and Neupane were imprisoned at Central
Jail, and Khadka was imprisoned at the Women's Jail--all in the capital,
Kathmandu.

Dinesh
Chaudhari, Spacetime DailyImprisoned: November 3,
2002

Security forces arrested Chaudhari, Jajarkot-based reporter for the
national newspaper Spacetime Daily. Jajarkot is a remote district in
western Nepal. Local journalists say that Chaudhari was targeted for reporting
on the alleged torture of area villagers by government security forces.
Chaudhari had recently taken photographs of the victims for his newspaper. He
was arrested under the provisions of a sweeping anti-terrorism ordinance
introduced in November 2001 that criminalized any contact with or support for
Maoist rebels. At the end of 2002, he was being held at a police detention
center in Jajarkot.

Tiémogo, publisher and
editor-in-chief of the satirical weekly Le Canard Déchaîné, was
arrested for allegedly defaming Prime Minister Hama Amadou in a series of
unflattering opinion pieces. Tiémogo accused the prime minister of attempting to
bribe Mahamane Ousmane, the head of Niger's Parliament, in a bid to retain his
position. According to Tiémogo's stories, Amadou offered 6 million CFA francs
(US$9,000), which Ousmane reportedly refused. Tiémogo appeared in court on June
19 and was ordered held without bail, said sources in the capital,
Niamey.

On June 28, the journalist was convicted of libel and sentenced
to eight months in prison. He was also ordered to pay a 50,000 CFA franc (US$75)
fine. In addition, Tiémogo was ordered to pay Amadou 1 million CFA francs
(US$1,500) in damages.

According to CPJ sources, after his conviction,
Tiémogo sent a letter of apology to the judge conceding that the articles'
allegations were unfounded. Though Tiémogo appealed the conviction, on November
11, the Niamey Appeals Court upheld his sentence.

PAKISTAN: 1

Munawwar Mohsin, The
Frontier PostImprisoned: January 29, 2001

Police in Peshawar
arrested Mohsin and four colleagues from The Frontier Post after the
newspaper published a letter to the editor titled "Why Muslims Hate Jews," which
included derogatory references to the Prophet Mohammed.

Although the
newspaper's senior management claimed that the letter was inserted into the copy
by mistake and apologized for failing to stop its publication, district
officials responded to complaints from local religious leaders by closing the
paper and ordering the immediate arrest of seven staff members on blasphemy
charges. In Pakistan, anyone accused of blasphemy is subject to immediate arrest
without due process; those found guilty may be sentenced to death.

At
the end of 2002, the blasphemy case was still pending, though Mohsin was the
only journalist from The Frontier Post who remained in prison. (Two of
the journalists charged in the case immediately went into hiding and were never
arrested. The other four were eventually released on bail.) Mohsin, who was
working as the newspaper's subeditor, admitted responsibility for publishing the
letter, which he says he had not read carefully. He told The New York
Times that he "could never think of abusing our Holy Prophet" but confessed
that, having only recently completed a drug rehabilitation program, his mind may
have been slightly addled. Mohsin is imprisoned in Peshawar Central
Jail.

RUSSIA: 1

Grigory
Pasko, Boyevaya VakhtaImprisoned: December 25,
2001

Pasko, an investigative reporter with Boyevaya Vakhta
(Battle Watch), a newspaper published by the Pacific Fleet, was convicted of
treason on December 25, 2001, and sentenced to four years in prison by the
Military Court of the Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok. The ruling also stripped
Pasko of his military rank and state decorations.

The journalist was
taken into custody in the courtroom and then jailed. Pasko's attorney, Anatoly
Pyshkin, filed an appeal with the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme
Court seeking full acquittal.

Pasko was first arrested in November 1997
and charged with passing classified documents to Japanese news outlets. He had
been reporting on environmental damage caused by the Russian navy. Pasko spent
20 months in prison while awaiting trial.

In July 1999, he was acquitted
of treason but found guilty of abusing his authority as an officer. He was
immediately amnestied, but four months later, the Military Collegium of the
Russian Supreme Court canceled the Vladivostok court's verdict and ordered a new
trial. Pasko's second trial began on July 11, 2001, after having been postponed
three times since March.

During the trial, Pasko's defense argued that
the proceedings lacked a basis in Russian law. Article 7 of the Federal Law on
State Secrets, which stipulates that information about environmental dangers
cannot be classified, protects Pasko's work on sensitive issues, such as
unlawful dumping of radioactive waste. The prosecution relied on a secret
Ministry of Defense decree (No. 055) even though the Russian Constitution bars
the use of secret legislation in criminal cases.

The defense also
challenged the veracity of many of the witnesses, several of whom acknowledged
that the Federal Security Service (FSB) falsified their statements or tried to
persuade them to give false testimony. An FSB investigator was reprimanded for
falsifying evidence in the first trial, and the signatures of two people who
witnessed a search of the reporter's apartment were allegedly
forged.

Throughout 2001, CPJ issued numerous statements calling attention
to Pasko's ordeal, and in early June, a CPJ delegation traveled to Vladivostok
before Pasko's trial to publicize concerns over the charges.

In early
2002, in a ruling that seemed to bode well for Pasko, the Military Collegium of
the Russian Supreme Court annulled a clause of Defense Ministry Decree No. 010,
a relic from the Soviet period, which prohibited "nonprofessional" contacts
between Russian military personnel and foreign citizens. A CPJ delegation
conducted a four-day mission to Vladivostok and Moscow in early March 2002 to
meet with Pasko supporters, politicians, and government officials to discuss the
case but was prevented from visiting Pasko.

At the same time, the
Military Collegium nullified Defense Ministry Decree No. 055 after Pasko's
lawyers had filed a complaint challenging its legality. This decree listed
various categories of military information as state secrets. Three months later,
however, the Appeals Board of the Supreme Court reinstated the decree.

Pasko was held in a temporary detention facility in Vladivostok until
October 2002, when he was transferred to a prison, as required by Russian law.
On January 23, 2003, a court in the city of Ussuriisk, in the Russian Far East,
granted Pasko parole. He was released immediately and traveled to his home in
Vladivostok.

Under Russian law, Pasko, who had served two-thirds of his
four-year sentence, was eligible for parole based on good behavior. State
prosecutors are contemplating protesting the parole decision, Russian and
international news reported.

Pasko and his defense attorneys plan to seek
the reversal of the journalist's guilty verdict. According to Russian news
reports, Pasko's lawyer Ivan Pavlov said a petition has already been filed with
the chairman of the Russian Supreme Court and should be heard in February 2003.
"We are going to work to achieve the full exoneration of my good name. We're
going to do everything to ensure that this criminal case is recognized as
falsification," said Pasko, following his release, according to The Associated
Press.

Kamara, the founding editor of one of Sierra Leone’s leading
newspapers, For Di People, was sentenced to six months in
prison for defaming a local judge.

Kamara was taken to Pa Demba Road Prison in the capital, Freetown,
after the High Court convicted him on 18 counts of criminal libel
under sections 26 and 27 of Sierra Leone’s Public Order Act.
The journalist was also fined US$2,100 on nine of the 18 counts,
sources reported. On the remaining counts, Kamara has the choice
of either paying a US$1,350 fine or serving an additional three
months in jail. The court also recommended that
the government ban his newspaper for six months.

The verdict against Kamara came almost a year after prominent appeals
court judge Tolla Thompson, who also heads the Sierra Leone soccer
association, accused Kamara of writing libelous articles in For
Di People criticizing the judge’s management of the association.
Kamara owns a popular local soccer team.

According to staff members at For Di People, Kamara appealed
the ruling to the Supreme Court, where he will dispute the legality
of the charges against him, as well as the High Court’s authority
to try the case. At year’s end, the Supreme Court had not yet
considered the appeal.

Meanwhile, Kamara’s staff has vowed to defy any ban and to
continue publishing the award-winning daily. The paper was still
appearing at the end of 2002.

SYRIA: 1Ibrahim Hemaidi, Al-Hayat
Imprisoned: December 23, 2002

Hemaidi, the Damascus bureau chief for the influential London-based
Pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, was detained by Syrian police in
connection with a December 20 article he wrote discussing the Syrian
government’s alleged preparations for a possible influx of Iraqi
refugees in the event of a U.S.-led attack on Iraq. The Syrian government
denied the report, and Al-Hayat published a statement from
the authorities to that effect on December 24.

On December 27, the official Syrian news agency, SANA, acknowledged
Hemaidi’s detention and said that he is accused of “publishing
false information,” which carries a penalty of up to three
years in prison and a fine of up to 1 million Syrian pounds (US$19,500).

TOGO: 2

Julien Ayi, Nouvel Echo
Imprisoned: August 8, 2002

Ayi, publication director for the independent daily Nouvel Echo,
was arrested and jailed at police headquarters in the capital, Lomé,
on charges of “defamation of the president” and “disturbing
public order.” Alphonse Nevamé Klu, the paper’s
editor-in-chief, was likewise charged but went into hiding to avoid
arrest.

The charges against the two journalists stemmed from an August 2 Nouvel
Echo article claiming that President Gnassingbé Eyadéma
had amassed a US$4.5 billion fortune, and that he is one of the world’s
497 wealthiest people, according to a list published in the American
financial magazine Forbes. The article also alleged that
Faure Gnassingbé, Eyadéma’s son and a National
Assembly member, had control over the fortune and that the riches
were “ill-gotten,” the French news agency Agence France-Presse
(AFP) reported.

Following the article’s publication, the government informed
the journalists that it was lodging a complaint with police against
the newspaper. A government statement, meanwhile, verified that Eyadéma
had not appeared on Forbes’ list of 497 names. On August
3, the state television channel broadcast the Forbes list,
pointing out that no Africans appeared in the document. When contacted
by AFP, Interior Minister Sizing Walla said, “The publication
of these lies is a way of inciting the population to rebellion.”

Walla also said that when questioned by police before his arrest,
Ayi had revealed that Claude Améganvi, a trade unionist and
chair of the opposition Workers Party, was the article’s source.
Améganvi was arrested by authorities on August 6 and faces
the same charges as Ayi. Though Améganvi also edits the trade
union newspaper Nyawo, local journalists said his arrest
was most likely not related to his journalistic activities.

On September 13, Ayi and Améganvi were convicted and sentenced
to four months in prison and a fine of 100,000 CFA francs (US$150)
each. Klu was sentenced in absentia to six months in prison and
the same fine.

According to the news Web sites Diastode.org
and letogolais.com,
in early December, an appeals court extended Ayi and Améganvi’s
sentences by two months. Nouvel Echo has not appeared since
early August.

Nicoué, director of the private weekly Courrier du Citoyen,
was arrested in the capital, Lomé, after he published an
editorial in that day’s edition of the newspaper arguing that
if the government did not take swift measures to institute democratic
reforms in the country, the Togolese people would rebel in 2003.
Nicoué was accused of “inciting armed rebellion against
the state” and was detained at police headquarters.

Local sources said that representatives of Togolese journalists’
organizations attempted to intervene on Nicoué’s behalf
by meeting with President Gnassingbé Eyadéma. Hopes
for negotiating the journalist’s release were dashed, however,
when the Courrier du Citoyen published a critical article
in its January 2, 2003, edition titled “Kill Us All and Reign
Over Our Dead Bodies.” The following day, authorities transferred
Nicoué to Lomé Prison.

TUNISIA: 2

Hamadi Jebali, Al-Fajr
Imprisoned: January 1991

On August 28, 1992, a military court sentenced Jebali, editor of
Al-Fajr, the weekly newspaper of the banned Islamic Al-Nahda
Party, to 16 years in prison. He was tried along with 279 other
individuals accused of belonging to Al-Nahda. Jebali was convicted
of “aggression with the intention of changing the nature of
the state” and “membership in an illegal organization.”

During his testimony, Jebali denied the charges and presented evidence
that he had been tortured while in custody. Jebali has been in jail
since January 1991, when he was sentenced to one year in prison
after Al-Fajr published an article calling for the abolition
of military courts in Tunisia. International human rights groups
monitoring the mass trial concluded that the proceedings fell far
below international standards of justice.

Zouhair Yahyaoui, TUNeZINE
Imprisoned: June 4, 2002

Yahyaoui, editor of the online publication TUNeZINE, was
arrested at the Internet café where he worked in the capital,
Tunis, and detained. He was sentenced two weeks later to 28 months
in prison.

A Tunis court found Yahyaoui guilty of intentionally publishing
false information, a violation of Article 306 of the country’s
Penal Code. The charge stemmed from a number of articles posted
on TUNeZINE, including a piece criticizing the May 26,
2002, constitutional referendum in which 99.52 percent of voters
approved constitutional changes allowing President Zine el-Abidine
Ben Ali to run for a fourth term. Yahyaoui was also found guilty
of using stolen communication lines to post his Web site, a violation
of Section 84 of the Telecommunications Code.

Since Yahyaoui established TUNeZINE in July 2001 using
a pseudonym, the site has frequently published articles and commentary—including
the views of leading Tunisian dissidents—that harshly criticize
the Tunisian government. Authorities have blocked the Web site to
users inside Tunisia, but TUNeZINE has often circumvented
these barriers by establishing alternate addresses.

TURKEY: 13

Huseyin Solak, Mucadele
Imprisoned: October 27, 1993

Solak, the Gaziantep bureau chief of the now banned socialist magazine
Mucadele, was arrested and charged under Article 168/2
of the Penal Code with membership in Devrimci Sol (also known as
Dev Sol), an outlawed underground leftist organization responsible
for numerous terrorist operations in Turkey. Solak was convicted
on testimony from a witness who said he had seen the journalist
distributing copies of Mucadele.

According to the trial transcript, the prosecution witness also
testified that Solak had hung unspecified banners in public and
had served as a lookout while members of Devrimci Sol threw a Molotov
cocktail at a bank in the town of Gaziantep. The prosecution also
cited “illegal” documents found after searches of Solak’s
home and office. Solak confessed to the charges while in police
custody but recanted in court.

On November 24, 1994, Solak was sentenced to 12 years and six months
in prison. At the end of 2002, he was being held in Sincan F-type
Prison.

Hasan Ozgun, Ozgur Gundem
Imprisoned: December 9, 1993

Ozgun, a Diyarbakir correspondent for the now banned pro-Kurdish
daily Ozgur Gundem, was arrested during a December 9, 1993,
police raid on the paper’s Diyarbakir bureau. He was charged
with being a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK), under Article 168/2 of the Penal Code.

Trial transcripts show that the prosecution based its case on what
it described as Ozgur Gundem’s pro-PKK slant, following
a Turkish-government pattern of harassing journalists affiliated
with the publication. The prosecution also submitted copies of the
banned PKK publications Serkhabun and Berxehun,
found in Ozgun’s possession, as well as photographs and biographical
sketches of PKK members from the newspaper’s archive. The
state also cited Ozgun’s possession of an unlicensed handgun
as evidence of his PKK membership.

Ozgun maintained that the PKK publications were used as sources
of information for newspaper articles, and that the photos of PKK
members were in the archive because of interviews the newspaper
had conducted in the past. Ozgun admitted to having purchased the
gun on the black market but denied all other charges. At the end
of 2002, Ozgun was being held in Aydin Prison.

Serdar Gelir, Mucadele
Imprisoned: April 26, 1994

Gelir, Ankara bureau chief for the now banned weekly socialist magazine
Mucadele, was detained on April 16, 1994. He was formally
arrested and imprisoned 10 days later on the charge of belonging
to an illegal organization.

The Ministry of Justice informed CPJ that Gelir was charged and
convicted under Article 168/2 of the Penal Code and Article 5 of
the Anti-Terror Law 3713 and sentenced to 15 years in prison by
the Ankara State Security Court for being a member of the armed,
illegal leftist organization Devrimci Sol (also known as Dev Sol).
Court records, however, indicate that he was sentenced to 12 years
and six months. At the end of 2002, Gelir was being held in Sincan
F-type Prison.

Utku Deniz Sirkeci, Tavir
Imprisoned: August 6, 1994

Sirkeci, the Ankara bureau chief of the leftist cultural magazine
Tavir, was arrested and charged with belonging to the outlawed
organization Devrimci Sol (also known as Dev Sol), under Article
168/2 of the Penal Code.

Court records from Sirkeci’s trial show that the state accused
him of throwing a Molotov cocktail at a bank in Ankara, but the
documents do not state what evidence was introduced to support the
allegation. Prosecutors also cited Sirkeci’s attendance at
the funeral of a Devrimci Sol activist to support the charge that
he belonged to the organization.

Sirkeci said he had attended the funeral in his capacity as a journalist.
He provided detailed testimony of his torture by police, who, he
alleged, coerced him to confess. He was convicted and sentenced
to 12 years and six months in prison and is currently jailed in
Sincan F-type Prison.

Aysel Bolucek, Mucadele
Imprisoned: October 11, 1994

Bolucek, an Ankara correspondent for the now banned weekly socialist
magazine Mucadele, was arrested at her home and charged
with belonging to an outlawed organization under Article 168/2 of
the Penal Code, partly on the basis of a handwritten document that
allegedly linked her to the banned leftist group Devrimci Sol (also
known as Dev Sol). She has been in prison since her arrest.

Court documents from her trial show that the state also cited the
October 8, 1994, issue of Mucadele to support its argument
that the magazine is a Devrimci Sol publication. The prosecutor
claimed that the October 8 edition insulted security forces and
state officials and praised Devrimci Sol guerrillas who had been
killed in clashes with security forces.

Earlier in 1994, Bolucek had been acquitted of the same charges,
so the defense argued that it was illegal for the defendant to be
tried twice for the
same crime. The defense accepted the prosecution’s claim that
Bolucek had written the document but said that the police forced
her to write it under torture while she was in custody. The defense
also argued that a legal publication could not be used as evidence,
and that the individuals who made incriminating statements about
Bolucek to the police had done so under torture and had subsequently
recanted. On December 23, 1994, Bolucek was convicted and sentenced
to 12 years and six months in jail. At the end of 2002, she was
being held in Kutahya Prison.

Burhan Gardas, Mucadele
Imprisoned: March 23, 1995

Gardas, the Ankara bureau chief for the now banned weekly socialist
magazine Mucadele, was prosecuted several times beginning
in 1994. Court records state that Gardas was arrested on January
12, 1994, at his office and charged with violating Article 168/2
of the Penal Code. During a search of the premises, police reportedly
found four copies of “news bulletins” of the outlawed
organization Devrimci Sol (also known as Dev Sol).

During the trial, the prosecution claimed that police also found
banners with left-wing slogans, along with photographs of Devrimci
Sol militants who had been killed in clashes with government security
forces. The prosecution also claimed that Gardas shouted anti-state
slogans during his arrest, and that he was using Mucadele’s
office for Devrimci Sol activities.

Gardas denied all the charges. His attorney argued that the illegal
publications were part of the magazine’s archive and that
Gardas had been tortured in prison, submitting a medical report
to prove the allegation. On May 14, 1994, Gardas was released pending
his trial’s outcome.

While awaiting the verdict in the 1994 prosecution, Gardas was arrested
on March 23, 1995, when police raided the office of the successor
to Mucadele, the weekly socialist magazine Kurtulus,
for which he was also the Ankara bureau chief. Officials said he
had violated Article 168/2 of the Penal Code because of his alleged
membership in the banned organization Devrimci Sol. During the raid,
police seized three copies of Kurtulus “news bulletins”
and six Kurtulus articles discussing illegal rallies.

Court documents from his second trial, held at the Number 2 State
Security Court of Ankara, reveal that the prosecution’s evidence
against Gardas consisted of his refusal to talk during a police
interrogation—allegedly a Devrimci Sol policy—and his
possession of publications that the prosecution contended were the
mouthpieces of outlawed organizations. In addition, Ali Han, an
employee at Kurtulus’ Ankara bureau, testified that
Gardas was a Devrimci Sol member. Gardas denied the claim, and his
lawyer argued that his client had the constitutional right to remain
silent during police interrogations.

On July 4, 1995, the Number 1 State Security Court of Ankara sentenced
Gardas to 15 years in prison on the 1994 charge. In 1996, he was
convicted and sentenced to an additional 15 years for the second
set of charges. At the end of 2002, Gardas was serving his term
at Kirsehir Prison.

Ozgur Gudenoglu, Mucadele
Imprisoned: May 24, 1995

Gudenoglu, Konya bureau chief of the now banned socialist weekly
magazine Mucadele, was arrested, charged, tried, and convicted
under Article 168/2 of the Penal Code for belonging to an illegal
organization. He was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison
for alleged membership in the outlawed leftist organization Devrimci
Sol (also known as Dev Sol). Gudenoglu was reportedly jailed in
Konya Prison.

Fatma Harman, Atilim
Imprisoned: June 24, 1995

Harman, a reporter for the now banned socialist weekly Atilim,
was detained during a June 15, 1995, police raid on the newspaper’s
Mersin bureau.

On June 24, 1995, Harman was formally arrested and charged under
Article 168/2 of the Penal Code for allegedly belonging to the outlawed
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP). Atilim’s
lawyer reported that the prosecution based its case on the argument
that the MKLP published Atilim. The prosecution introduced
copies of Atilim found in Harman’s possession as
evidence of her affiliation with the MLKP and claimed that several
unspecified “banners” were found in the Atilim office.
The prosecution also alleged that Harman lived in a house belonging
to the MLKP. On January 26, 1996, Harman was sentenced to 12 years
and six months in prison and jailed in Adana Prison. She is currently
in Nidge Prison.

Erdal Dogan, Alinteri
Imprisoned: July 10, 1995

Dogan, an Ankara reporter for the now banned socialist weekly Alinteri,
was arrested and later charged under Article 168/2 of the Penal
Code for allegedly belonging to the outlawed Turkish Revolutionary
Communist Union (TIKB).

According to the trial transcript, the prosecution argued that the
TIKB published Alinteri. The case against Dogan was based
on the following evidence:
(1) a photograph of Dogan, taken at a 1992 May Day parade, allegedly
showing him standing underneath a United Revolutionary Trade Union
banner;
(2) a photograph of Dogan taken on
the anniversary of a TIKB militant’s death;
(3) a photograph
allegedly showing Dogan attending an illegal demonstration in the
capital, Ankara;
(4) a statement of an alleged member of the TIKB
who claimed that Dogan belonged to the organization.

The defense argued that the incriminating statement was invalid
because it had been extracted under torture. Dogan’s lawyer
told CPJ that the photograph from the militant’s memorial
was blurry, and Dogan testified in court that he had attended the
May Day parade in his capacity as a journalist. He was convicted,
sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison, and jailed in Bursa
Prison. At the end of 2002, he was being held in Bolu Prison.

Sadik Celik, Kurtulus
Imprisoned: December 23, 1995

Celik, Zonguldak bureau chief for the now banned leftist weekly
Kurtulus, was detained and charged with violating Article
168/2 of the Penal Code for allegedly belonging to the outlawed
Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).

The prosecution claimed that the DHKP-C published Kurtulus,
and that Celik’s position with the magazine proved he was
a member of the group. Celik was accused of conducting “seminars”
for the DHKP-C at the magazine’s office, propagandizing for
the organization, transporting copies of the magazine from Istanbul
to Zonguldak by bus, and organizing the magazine’s distribution
in Zonguldak. The prosecution also stated that Celik’s name
appeared in a document written by a DHKP-C leader. (It is not clear
whether the document was introduced as material evidence.)

The prosecution claimed that Celik’s refusal to speak while
in police custody proved his guilt. The defense argued that the
prosecution could not substantiate any of its claims. Celik acknowledged
having distributed the magazine in his capacity as Kurtulus’
bureau chief. He said that he had held meetings in the office to
discuss the magazine’s affairs. The defense presented the
statements of two Kurtulus reporters to corroborate Celik’s
statements. On October 17, 1996, Celik was sentenced to 12 years
and six months in prison.

Mustafa Benli, Hedef, Alevi Halk Gercegi
Imprisoned: May 11, 1998

Benli, owner and editor of the leftist publications Hedef
and Alevi Halk Gercegi, was arrested on or about May 11,
1998, and later charged with “membership in an illegal organization,”
a crime under Article 168/2 of the Penal Code. According to court
documents, the prosecution charged that Hedef was the mouthpiece
of the Turkish Revolutionary Party, and that authorities had found
copies of illegal magazines in Benli’s possession. That, along
with articles published in Hedef and Alevi Halk Gercegi,
was cited as partial proof of Benli’s membership in the organization.
He was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison and is currently
in Edirne Prison.

Memik Horuz, Ozgur Gelecek, Isci Koylu
Imprisoned: June 18, 2001

Horuz, editor of the leftist publications Ozgur Gelecek
and Isci Koylu, was arrested and later charged with “membership
in an illegal organization,” a crime under Article 168/2 of
the Penal Code. Prosecutors based the case against Horuz on interviews
he had allegedly conducted with leftist guerrillas in Topcam, which
Ozgur Gelecek later published in 2000 and 2001. The state
also based its case on the testimony of an alleged former militant
who claimed that the journalist belonged to the outlawed Marxist-Leninist
Communist Party. Horuz was convicted on June 12, 2002, and sentenced
to 15 years in prison. He is currently in Sincan F-type Prison.

Sinan Kara, Datca Haber
Imprisoned: December 25, 2002

Kara, publisher of the weekly Datca Haber, was sentenced
by a criminal court in the southwestern province of Mugla to three
months in prison in April 2001 for violating the Press Law, which
requires that newspapers distribute two copies of each edition to
a local government district office. However, after the Turkish government
amended the law in August 2002, Kara’s penalty was converted
in September 2002 to a 30 billion lira (US$18,000) fine, which the
journalist was unable to pay.

As a result, a local prosecutor ordered him to serve three months
and eight days in prison for not paying the fine. He was jailed
on December 25, 2002, and was in Ula Prison at year’s end.
Local Turkish journalists believe the original suit was intended
to antagonize Kara, whose publication has angered provincial authorities
with its critical coverage, and who has been targeted with several
lawsuits.

Bekjanov, editor of Erk, a newspaper published by the banned
opposition Erk party, and Ruzimuradov, an employee of the paper,
were sentenced to 14 years and 15 years in prison, respectively,
at an August 1999 trial in the capital, Tashkent. They were convicted
for distributing a banned newspaper containing slanderous criticism
of President Islam Karimov, participating in a banned political
protest, and attempting to overthrow the regime. In addition, the
court found them guilty of illegally leaving the country and damaging
their Uzbek passports.

Both men were tortured during their six-month pretrial detentions
in the Tashkent City Prison. Their health has deteriorated as a
result of conditions in the prison.

According to human rights activists in Tashkent, Bekjanov was transferred
on November 27, 1999, to “strict-regime” Penal Colony
64/46 in the city of Navoi in central Uzbekistan. He has lost considerable
weight and, like many prisoners in Uzbek camps, suffers from malnutrition.
Local sources have informed CPJ that Ruzimuradov is being held in
“strict-regime” Penal Colony 64/33 in the village of
Shakhali near the town of Karshi.

Madzhid Abduraimov, Yangi Asr
Imprisoned: August 1, 2001

Abduraimov, a correspondent with the national weekly Yangi Asr,
was convicted of extortion and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
In a January 15, 2001, article in Yangi Asr, Abduraimov
charged that Nusrat Radzhabov, head of the Boysunsky District grain
production company Zagotzerno, had misappropriated state funds and
falsified documents. Abduraimov also accused the businessman of
killing a 12-year-old in a car accident and alleged that Radzhabov’s
teenage son was part of a group that had beaten and raped a 13-year-old
boy.

Radzhabov claims that Abduraimov asked him for money and threatened
to publish more accusations unless he was paid. According to the
Institute for
War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), Radzhabov tried to sue Abduraimov
for slander but dropped the suit after a local prosecutor’s
investigation confirmed the facts in the article.

Authorities arrested Abduraimov and accused him of receiving a US$6,000
bribe. He and a witness quoted by the IWPR claimed that a man threw
the money into the back seat of his car immediately before police
stopped his vehicle, searched it, and arrested him. Abduraimov was
held in the Termez Regional Police Department jail until his trial
began in Termez City Court on July 4, 2001.

According to Abduraimov, the court proceedings were influenced by
local officials who objected to his reporting on corruption in the
oil business. His request for a change of venue was not granted.
He refused to attend the hearings and was sentenced in absentia.

Abduraimov is known for his investigative reporting and critical
stance toward local law enforcement bodies and authorities. The
journalist and his family have been persecuted for several years
with threatening phone calls, and his son was reportedly beaten
by police and sentenced to four months in jail for disorderly conduct.
Supporters say Abduraimov was most likely framed, and it is not
known where he is being held.

VIETNAM: 7

Ha Sy Phu, free-lance
Imprisoned: May 12, 2000

Nguyen Xuan Tu, a scientist and political essayist better known
by his pen name, Ha Sy Phu, was placed under house arrest and charged
with treason. The arrest came after an April 28, 2000, raid on Ha
Sy Phu’s home in Dalat, Lam Dong Province, during which police
confiscated a computer, a printer, and several diskettes. They returned
on May 12 with orders for his arrest signed by Col. Nguyen Van Do,
police chief of Lam Dong Province.

Officials suspected that Ha Sy Phu had helped draft a pro-democracy
declaration, according to CPJ sources, and his arrest followed the
government’s long-standing harassment of the writer. Ha Sy
Phu was held under Administrative Detention Directive 31/CP, which
allows two years of house arrest without due process, and was required
to report daily to the Dalat police for interrogation.

In January 2002, police searched Ha Sy Phu’s home and again
confiscated his computer. The raid came during a period of escalating
harassment of dissidents in Vietnam. Though the treason charge against
Ha Sy Phu was withdrawn in January 2001, authorities have renewed
his administrative detention order, and he remained under house
arrest at the end of 2002.

Tran Khue, free-lance
Imprisoned: October 9, 2001

On October 22, 2002, the Foreign Ministry announced that writer
Tran Khue, also known as Tran Van Khue, had been placed under administrative
detention, or house arrest, for two years, and that his term had
begun on October 9, 2001. Administrative Detention Directive 31/CP
allows two years of house arrest without due process.

In September 2001, Khue had been active in failed efforts to legally
register the independent National Association to Fight Corruption.
He had also established online publications, called Dialogue
2000 and Dialogue 2001, which included articles by
himself and others advocating political reform. In January 2002,
the government ordered local officials to confiscate and destroy
all printed copies of the publications.

On March 8, 2002, seven police officers entered and searched Khue’s
home in Ho Chi Minh City and confiscated his computer equipment
and several documents, according to CPJ sources. On March 10, Khue
sent a message via cell phone to a friend indicating that he was
in danger. Immediately after the message was sent, all means of
communication with Khue were cut.

According to CPJ sources, police had searched Khue’s house
for materials relating to an open letter that he sent to Chinese
president Jiang Zemin during Jiang’s visit to Vietnam in late
February 2002. The letter, which was distributed over the Internet,
protested recent border accords between the two countries.

On December 29, 2002, about 20 security officials came to Khue’s
home and detained him for meeting with Hanoi-based democracy activist
Pham Que Duong and his wife. The officers also confiscated his computer
and computer disks. The day before, Duong was arrested at the Ho
Chi Minh City train station as he was returning to Hanoi. A government
official stated that the two men had been “caught red-handed
while carrying out activities that seriously violate Vietnamese
laws.” She said that Khue and Duong will be tried but did
not clarify on what charges or when.

Nguyen Khac Toan, free-lance
Imprisoned: January 8, 2002

Toan was arrested in an Internet café in the capital, Hanoi.
He had reported on protests by disgruntled farmers and then transmitted
his reports via the Internet to overseas pro-democracy groups. Authorities
later charged him with espionage. On December 20, 2002, Toan was
sentenced to 12 years in prison, one of the harshest sentences given
to a Vietnamese democracy activist in recent years.

Toan, 47, served in the North Vietnamese army in the 1970s. After
becoming active in Vietnam’s pro-democracy movement, he began
to write articles using the pen name Veteran Tran Minh Tam.

During the National Assembly’s December 2001 and January 2002
meeting, large numbers of peasants gathered in front of the meeting
hall to demand compensation for land that the government had wrongfully
confiscated from them during recent redevelopment efforts. Toan
helped the protesters write their grievances to present to government
officials. He also wrote several news reports about the demonstrations
and sent the articles to overseas pro-democracy publications.

Toan’s trial took less than one day, and his lawyer was not
allowed to meet with him alone until the day before proceedings
began. The day after Toan was sentenced, the official Vietnamese
press carried reports stating that he had “slandered and denigrated
executives of the party and the state by sending electronic letters
and by providing information to certain exiled Vietnamese reactionaries
in France.” He is currently being held in B14 Prison, in Thanh
Tri District, outside Hanoi.

Bui Minh Quoc, free-lance
Imprisoned: January 14, 2002

Free-lance journalist Bui Minh Quoc was charged with “possessing
anti-government literature,” including his own writings, and
put under administrative detention, or house arrest, for two years
in Dalat District. Administrative Detention Directive 31/CP allows
two years of house arrest without due process. Prior to his arrest,
he had conducted extensive research on Vietnam’s territorial
concessions to China, according to international news reports.

A Foreign Ministry spokesperson told journalists that, “The
competent authorities told me that Quoc had violated Vietnamese
law and they will provide more specifics on his violations in the
coming time.” Quoc, a poet and journalist who was a North
Vietnamese Radio correspondent during the Vietnam War, was also
under house arrest between 1997 and 1999.

Le Chi Quang, free-lance
Imprisoned: February 21, 2002

Le Chi Quang, 32, was detained at an Internet café in the
capital, Hanoi. He had written and posted several articles online
criticizing government policy. According to Vietnamese authorities,
officials at a popular domestic Internet service provider notified
the Public Security Bureau that Quang had used computers at a specific
Internet café in Hanoi to communicate with “reactionaries”
living abroad. Security officials then tracked him down at the café.

On September 24, the state prosecutor’s office, known as the
Supreme People’s Organ of Control, issued a document outlining
specific charges against Quang. The document cites several articles
by Quang as evidence of his “anti-government” activities, including an essay
titled “Beware of Imperialist China,” which criticized
land and sea border agreements between China and Vietnam; essays
praising well-known dissidents Nguyen Thanh Giang and Vu Cao Quan; and an
article about the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral trade agreement.

On November 8, following a three-hour trial on national-security
charges, the Hanoi People’s Court sentenced Quang to four
years in prison followed by three years of house arrest. Quang was
charged under articles 88 and 92 of the Criminal Code, which ban
the distribution of information that opposes the government. Quang’s
parents were the only observers allowed into the courtroom, and
his lawyer was not allowed to present a defense before the court,
according to CPJ sources. While the chief judge in the case told
foreign reporters that Quang had pleaded guilty, CPJ sources said
that he admitted in court to having written the articles mentioned
by the prosecution but denied committing any crime.

During Quang’s trial, about 100 family members and supporters
gathered outside the courthouse. In December 2002, he was transferred
to Sao Do Prison in Phu Ly, south of Hanoi.

Pham Hong Son, free-lance
Imprisoned: March 27, 2002

Son, a medical doctor, was arrested after he posted an essay online
about democracy. Authorities also searched his home and confiscated
his computer and several documents, according to the Democracy Club
for Vietnam, an organization based in both California and Hanoi,
Vietnam’s capital.

Prior to his arrest, Son translated into Vietnamese and posted an
essay titled “What is Democracy?” (The article
first appeared on the U.S. State Department Web site.) Son had previously
written several essays promoting democracy and human rights, all
of which appeared on Vietnamese-language online forums.

After Son’s arrest, the government issued a statement claiming
that his work was “anti-state and anti-Vietnam Communist Party,”
according to international press reports. At the end of 2002, Son
was being held in B14 Prison, in Thanh Liet Village, Thanh Tri District,
outside Hanoi. By year’s end, authorities had not formally
charged Son or announced his trial date.

Nguyen Vu Binh, free-lance
Imprisoned: September 25, 2002

Security officials searched Binh’s home in Vietnam’s
capital, Hanoi, before arresting him, according to CPJ sources.
Police did not disclose the reasons for the writer’s arrest,
although CPJ sources believe it may be linked to an essay he had
written criticizing border agreements between China and Vietnam.

In late July, Binh was briefly detained after submitting written
testimony to a U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing on
freedom of expression in Vietnam. Authorities then required him
to report to the local police station daily. He was also subjected
to frequent, day-long interrogation sessions.

Binh, a former journalist, worked for almost 10 years at Tap
Chi Cong San (Journal of Communism), an official publication
of Vietnam’s Communist Party. In January 2001, he left his
position there after applying to form an independent opposition
group called the Liberal Democratic Party.

Since then, Binh has written several articles calling for political
reform and criticizing current government policy. In August, he
wrote an article titled “Some Thoughts on the China-Vietnam
Border Agreement,” which was distributed online.

In 2002, Vietnamese authorities cracked down on critics of land
and sea border agreements signed by China and Vietnam as part of
a rapprochement following the 1979 war between the two countries.
Several writers have criticized the government for agreeing to border
concessions without consulting the Vietnamese people.

By the end of 2002, authorities had not filed formal charges against
Binh or announced a trial date.

New York, November 25, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed that Irada Huseynova, a correspondent with the Azerbaijani weekly Bakinsky Bulvar who currently works for the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES), was detained today in Moscow and could be extradited.

CJES director Oleg Panfilov told CPJ that Moscow police arrived at CJES offices and detained Huseynova at the request of Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General's Office. The journalist faces extradition to Azerbaijan, where she was facing possible jail time for criminal defamation charges.

Tags:

New York, November 25, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes Russian president Vladimir Putin's decision today to veto restrictive amendments to the Law on the Struggle with Terrorism and the Law on Mass Media that were passed by Parliament earlier this month.

Putin announced his decision during a meeting with media chiefs. He also asked both houses of the Russian Parliament to form a commission to redraft the amendments.

New York, November 19, 2002—A body suspected to be that of Mykhailo Kolomyets, director of Ukrainski Novyny news agency, was found on October 30 hanging from a tree in a forest in northwestern Belarus, near the city of Maladzechna, said a news report that Ukrainski Novyny published today.Kolomyets' colleagues at the news agency said that he did not show up for work on October 21, and that they reported him missing to law enforcement authorities a week later. According to Ukrainian police, the journalist had traveled to neighboring Belarus on October 22, where he telephoned a friend, Lyubov Ruban, who said that Kolomyets informed her that he was planning to commit suicide.

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New York, November 19, 2002—An appeals court in the central Italian city of Perugia announced this week that it had convicted former prime minister Giulio Andreotti, 83, and sentenced him to 24 years in prison for ordering the murder of muckraking journalist Mino Pecorelli in 1979.

Pecorelli, who was preparing to publish compromising information about Andreotti, was gunned down on March 20, 1979, while sitting in his car in central Rome. A gunman using a pistol fitted with a silencer shot him once in the head and three times in the back.

Your Excellency:
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is extremely concerned about amendments to the Law on the Struggle with Terrorism and the Law on Mass Media that were recently passed by the Parliament and now await your final approval.

New York, November 8, 2002—Three journalists in Tajikistan have been conscripted into military service in retaliation for producing a talk show that criticized local military officials, according to local and international reports.

The program, which aired on October 24 and 27, was produced by journalists from the local, independent television stations SM-1 and TRK-Asia in the northern city of Khujand and reported that the military uses gangs to forcibly recruit young men into military service. During the show, senior military officer Faziliddin Domonov denied the use of such aggressive tactics, the New York­based Eurasianet Web site reported.

New York, October 29, 2002—CPJ is deeply concerned that Sergei Duvanov, a prominent 49-year-old journalist known for his criticism of Kazakh authorities, was arrested on October 27 on suspicion of raping a minor.

The journalist, who remains in detention, has been officially charged, the opposition party Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan reported today.

Duvanov has denied the charges, saying the authorities "decided to use the dirtiest, most deceitful means to discredit me in from of the eyes of my Western colleagues...in order to prevent me from writing articles which aren't pleasing for those who sit in power," The Associated Press reported.